


It's All Coming Back To Me

by BourbonOnTheRocks



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Angst, Beth Being Kind Of An Asshole Too, Blink and you'll miss it, Bullet wound, But c'mon at this point it's relationship canon!, Cheating, Competition, Did I Mention Angst?, Dissociative Episode, Extremely Awkward Bonding, F/M, Highly indecent and inappropriate manifestation of arousal, I know I said I wouldn't, I mean what else should we expect from these two dummies huh?, I'm so sorry, Like Quite A Lot, Massive Denial Of Everything, Minimal amount of angst, Minor S3 Spoiler, My first post S2 fic without angsty tags yay!, POV Rio, Post-Season/Series 02, Rating May Change, Rio (Good Girls) Being an Asshole, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Teeny Tiny Bit Of PTSD, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unsubtle British Dramaturgic Allusions, Violence, guest appearances of Rhea and the Paper Porcupine if you squint hard, gun shot, tropes and cliches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:40:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 49,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22295731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BourbonOnTheRocks/pseuds/BourbonOnTheRocks
Summary: But when you touch me like thisAnd you hold me like thatI just have to admitThat it's all coming back to meORSet maybe a year or two after S2 finale, Beth is back at working with Rio but they both moved on and keep things strictly professional. Although sometimes it doesn't take much to re-ignite an old spark...
Relationships: Beth Boland/Original Character(s), Beth Boland/Rio, Rio (Good Girls)/Original Character(s)
Comments: 211
Kudos: 469





	1. Trapped In The Closet

**Author's Note:**

> So I had this idea of a post S2 Brio carefully avoiding any physical/eye/mind contact until circumstances wouldn't give them a choice, and, well, let's explore how this is (not) working for them, shall we?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First fire alarm, but since when do they listen to these?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't support R. Kelly at all, and I'm not even a big fan of his music (I prefer [parodies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmjOdFZw8uc) of it) but for obvious reasons I couldn't find a better chapter title fit...

_Backyard. Now._

Beth frowned at her phone screen. At this point, laconism was probably one of Rio's trademarks, but coming over to her house was not. Not anymore, at least. So that was... unsettling. Though it had to happen for a reason so she'd better show up quickly. Because impatience was definitely one of his signature moves.

She walked out the door, crossing the sides of the shawl she'd picked up on her way out over her chest and slightly shivering under the night breeze. She clocked him sitting on her picnic table, and that vision was already kind of problematic, reminding her of irrelevant old days. She stood a few steps away from him, respecting the minimal distance that some really _unfortunate_ event had implicitly imposed between them ever since.

"What do you want?" she whispered, although there was no one but her in the house at the moment, so she could as well have spoken normally.

But meetings at night with Rio were... well, they carried such a conspiracy vibe that they were an incentive for plotting whispers. Always had. Always would. Some things probably never changed, no matter the number of bullets in between.

"You said you had summin' to tell me."

His voice was low but even. Factual, no emotion associated but subtle annoyance. Another thing that would probably never change. Their eyes briefly met, almost by accident and devoid of any hidden intent. She pouted with a sigh. Maybe she shouldn't have taken his mind-reading skills for granted when she'd texted him.

"Well I didn't mean that you had to come over, it could wait until next drop," she replied, almost reproachfully despite her low voice.

He chuckled. Chewed his bottom lip for a while, his eyes obstinately focusing aside and eventually coming back to her when he spoke again.

"Well I'm here now so what is it you wanted to say?"

She sighed again. Her life had taken an unexpected turn that afternoon, more or less six month after _the night_ , when she'd come back home from grocery shopping and found Rio and his boys in her living-room, guns outnumbering people. It had felt like their first encounter all over again, except that this time there were three bullets and a fucking pile of unspoken issues standing in the middle. And cards had been played pretty close to the chest ever since. On both sides. Of course she'd been relieved to find out that he'd survived. For approximately five seconds. The time he'd needed to close the distance and press his goddam barrel against her forehead. She swallowed at the memory.

"I think I'm being followed," she explained.

They both remained silent for a while. He looked away with that amused expression on his face, the one he usually pulled on whenever he was about to explain to her why what she'd just said was ridiculous.

"Yeah... You think or you sure?" he asked.

He'd never trusted her. Since the very beginning. Obviously it could only get worse in the aftermath. She wasn't exactly sure of why he'd kept working with her. Of course she owed him money, but if she'd been in his shoes, she'd rather have written down that line under miscellaneous losses than gotten back in business with the very person who'd... done that. Whatever.

"Pretty sure," she replied with a defiantly raised chin.

Never tell Rio she was sure of anything, that was her number one rule. No, not exactly, it was probably number two, the number one actually being all about always standing at least five steps away from him. Anyway. Displaying absolute certitudes would be suicidal, that was the fucking point. He was too much of a I-told-you-so person for her to take that risk. He gave up pretty quickly this time, though.

"All right. What they looked like?"

She shrugged, "Tall, bald, tattooed..."

"Like pretty much anyone in my lane, huh?"

 _My lane_. Obviously it wasn't hers anymore. They were back in business but she was no longer a partner nor any kind of special co-worker. Back to the bottom of the scale, with every low cut and lack of benefits it implied. And, well. She _understood_ that. She'd kind of deserved it, to be honest, at least from his point of view. But she wasn't exactly remorseful. For anything. She'd done what she had to do when there was no other choice left, so sue her for that! And the reason why she was happy with the fact that he'd made it through had more to do with her own status regarding murder than his well-being. Mostly, at least. They'd never talked about it, actually, and it was probably for the best. Somehow, they'd both implicitly come back to some very early dynamics they should never have given up on in the first place.

"Well, I'm not going to make details up," she coldly replied, her eyes flashing a lightning he could have noticed if he was actually looking at her.

He put on a whole show at waving his hand in an annoyed motion and briefly closing his eyes.

"Times? Places?" he laconically requested.

She rolled her eyes upwards, carefully remembering and counting on her fingers.

"When I picked up the kids from school last Thursday. When I went shopping on Saturday. And, well, when I left home for the last drop, but I managed to shake him off."

His jaw clenched.

"You sure 'bout that?"

"Yeah," she vigorously nodded.

Amendment to rule number two. Always ensure Rio that she'd done her part of the job properly. She'd never hear the end of it otherwise.

He nodded, "Okay. I'll see what I can do. Just let me know if you see him again, yeah?"

She cleared her throat in a vaguely approving way and he gratified her with a last "Cool," before he smoothly got back on his feet and strode across her backyard, back into the darkness. 

She walked inside the house with a sigh. This had been... probably her longest interaction with Rio ever since he'd popped up back into her life. Theirs was the strictest side of business these days. They'd only meet for cash drops and, well, cash drops. Sometimes he'd text her details for an unplanned meeting or delivery, but that was it, and somehow it felt... refreshing. Not having to think about multi-levels of understanding anymore. Things were simple. Bottom-line basic. She owed him money, worked for him as a payback which also provided her with some income, and that was it. No more plays, no more teasing, everything that had been a part of that sexual energy sparkling between them before, it was gone, vanished, and, well, that was a relief. The opposite would have been... utterly embarrassing anyway. Ridiculous, even. The simple idea of desire surviving attempted murder was just _insane_. No, things were _great_ the way they were.

They'd kept on this dynamics for months now, without any further trouble nor unexpected adjustment. She barely remembered what his touch felt like, and she definitely didn't crave it. Or maybe she just avoided thinking about it. And as far as she was concerned, she'd have walked down that path for as long as possible, and kept things strictly profesh. But of course there _had_ to be sand in the gears, hadn't it? She couldn't pretend that she hadn't noticed that black BMW in her rearview mirror. More than once. Enough to freak her out at least, and recognize it for what it was, an incursion of Rio's world into _her_ world. Seeing the car parked next to the kids' school had been the last drop, infuriating her enough to message him. And all things considered, meeting Rio outside of a delivery wasn't that much of a big deal as long as they followed the rules.

She'd thought that Rio would handle the problem his usual way. That she wouldn't hear about it anymore except maybe one day when he'd casually drop in the conversation that the guy's body was still missing, or some gangbanger humble bragging of the kind. She most surely didn't expect his text on the next week, so much exactly similar to his previous one that for one second she blamed the phone network for its message delivery inaccuracy.

"Are you sure that you couldn't disclose over the phone whatever you have to tell me?" she asked once she'd joined the backyard, half-tired and half-angry.

Backyards meets weren't an active part of their dynamic anymore, and she wasn't exactly eager to see them multiply.

"This your guy?" he asked, showing her a picture on his phone, and their fingers didn't brush, even the slightest, when she picked the device from his hand to peer closely at it.

She squinted, "Maybe? I'm sorry, but it's not like I ever stopped to take a close look at the guy! I was _with my kids_..."

He looked away, licking his lips in a considering motion before his eyes came back at, well, somewhere in her surroundings. Not really her face though.

"Okay, I think it's better to check, just in case. I have a meeting with his boss. Friday night. You comin'."

There was no point in protesting. Rio was her boss, and also the implicit trigger her life depended on. But still.

"What do you need me for? Can't you check by yourself?" she stiffened.

"Oh I'm sorry, am I the one who's been followed?" he asked, squinting with irrefutable — but dickish — logic.

She didn't actually attend the meeting, though. Rio did, leaving her hanging out with his crew in a bar downtown one block away from the office of this new player whose sweet name was Ian. Who wasn't exactly a _new_ player, to be honest. Just a slightly different one. Because here lied the irony. Despite her stalker's blatant affiliation to the wide crime family, it turned out that his boss had close acquaintances among journalists and cops. The reasons why he was still breathing while apparently everybody in the criminal world knew about that were... unclear. It probably had something to do with his tendency to accumulate compromising files about everyone. But Beth had gotten used to the strange laws ruling that parallel universe, so she sort of accepted any piece of information Rio would provide her with the same jaded shrug. Anyway. Rio's main concern was about Ian using whatever information he could retrieve from her to get at him and properly take him down. He'd also mentioned something about Turner, but she'd stopped listening at this point. She didn't exactly care, she was at the bottom of the criminal scale, so strategy was not her fucking problem anymore.

But whatever, she thought, taking one sip of her drink. Rio's boys were actually a pretty decent company, sharing booty calls stories that Annie wouldn't have disavowed, and paying their fair rounds of drinks. Rio came back at some point though, cold eyes grasping her attention before his head authoritatively pointed towards the door. She wordlessly followed him as they broke and entered into Ian's office. She wasn't exactly sure of what to look for, but she shook her head in disbelief when she saw Rio searching through a filing cabinet. Who could possibly still use paper files these days? Philip Marlowe's era was over, didn't Rio know that? With a shrug, she headed towards the computer.

She didn't get the chance to deepen her investigation, though. She'd thought that Rio had it all under control, she really did. There was too much unfinished business standing between the two of them to ever talk about trust, but this was kind of his job, he was supposed to know how to do it. So the voices in the corridor truly shocked her, and Rio's alarmed look wasn't exactly reassuring. He silently placed his pointer finger against his lips and waved his head towards an small door carved into one of the office walls. Within two steps he was in front of it, and well, she fought her snort hard when he opened it. A broom cupboard. Seriously? The voices were coming closer, though, a concerning threat since neither of them was supposed to be there. With a panicked look she obeyed Rio's impatient nod.

He wrapped an arm around her waist and quickly shoved her inside the cupboard. There wasn't much space in there, so he had to press himself hard against her to close the door behind him. She heard the unmistakable — and rather panicking — sound of the office door opening and Rio's hand immediately came up to firmly press against her mouth, preventing her emergent squeak to slip out from her lips. She started to shake uncontrollably with fear, and the feeling of Rio's hands on her on top of this was, well, almost unbearable. It was actually the first time he touched her since, hem... _before_ , and it felt like crossing an inacceptable boundary. She just... she just wanted to crawl out of her skin like a frog trapped in hot water, she couldn't stand his touch nor the feeling of his body in her back, it brought back too many painful memories she'd buried deep in the aftermath of the shooting. And it didn't feel like he was particularly happy with her as well. His hold on her waist was harsh, mostly space-optimization driven and he probably wouldn't care about hurting her if it weren't for her resulting protesting noises. And his palm against her mouth, God, it was too much. Too intimate, and aggressive at the same time.

Feeling the beginning of a panic attack building inside of her, she rested her forehead against the cold wall Rio's body was pressing her against, and she forced herself into deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling through her nose until her body relaxed enough against his for him to decide that his hand could leave her mouth without putting them at risk. Things slightly improved from there. She could breathe through her mouth, and at least the intolerable feeling of his skin on her lips was gone, although his hand had shifted only inches away, ready to muffle any other sound she'd let out. Plus she was still overwhelmed with his body heat, like seriously, what else could she expect from two alive human bodies enclosed in a small space, huh? This was basic thermodynamics. Not to mention his scent which was already all over her, intoxicating in a wrong way and bringing back all sorts of awful feelings and sensorial memories.

The concrete surface of the wall was irritating the skin of her forehead, so she slightly raised her head, and, well. There was _really_ few space in there so the moment her face left the wall she found herself with no other option than resting her head against Rio's upper shoulder. His hot breaths tickled her earlobe and she focused hard on what was going on outside, to not let herself get distracted. She was starting to get used to their proximity, at least her body understood, it wasn't like it never had happened before, but it was highly unsettling to her mind. This wasn't supposed to happen anymore. Never again. And yet unfortunate circumstances had created this, but she could... yeah, she could handle it, she'd find that strength. Or so she kept telling herself.

She was still tense, though, and the voices outside reminding her that a thin wooden door was the only thing standing between her and death weren't really helping. She could hear some colorfully expressed concerns about the office lights being turned on while they shouldn't be, and Rio and her were clearly not yet out of danger. But then she... well. Pressed against each other as they were, she couldn't _unnotice_. And in very different circumstances she would have admitted that it was somehow flattering. She'd shot him, for God's sake! But in such an already terrible moment, it was just awkward. Terrifying, almost. Maybe revoltingly gross, and obviously inappropriate. Heating her cheeks to a point which had her probably glowing in the dark already. And the smart thing to do, hum, no, the only thing to do was to keep acting normal, provided such a word could apply to hiding in a closet from a violent crime boss with her frienemy. Rio didn't leave her much of a choice anyway. The way his fingers sank harshly between her ribs was practically a death threat at this point, forbidding her to even give acknowledgment a try.

She... well, it was probably nervous, and clearly not her smartest move, but her chest started to shake as giggles were making their way through her throat, and Rio's hand quickly covered her mouth again. She managed to keep her laughter under control though. Wasn't it hilarious, still... His biggest concern being more about his own body's betrayal rather than the imminent danger standing behind that door. Although she could get it. Based on how utterly embarrassing the moment was for _her_ , this had to be excruciatingly infuriating for him. Knowing that even if they'd never mention that in the future, she'd _remember_. At this point she made a strategic mistake and took Rio's shame for granted, so she allowed herself to relax slightly against him, bending her head backwards until her cheek brushed his stubble, maybe unconsciously taunting and teasing a bit.

She knew that he wouldn't let her get away with this without getting even someday. Obviously. But she would pay for it later, there wasn't much he could do at the moment without endangering both of them. That was what made it so delightful, that pretence of a power, the way the hurt around her ribs was proportional to his fury as she was playing with his supposed desire. These were ecstatic sensations long-forgotten — and by that she meant the power play, not his... well.

Shortly after, she heard Ian's guards or whoever they were finally leave the office, and she deeply exhaled in relief, her body going limp in Rio's arms. The tension in his body loosened as well and he briefly rested his head against hers before he pulled himself together. They gave the wait another couple of minutes before he experimentally opened the cupboard door to a dark, empty office. Keep searching would be reckless, though. The goons could come back any minute. They exited the building miraculously unnoticed, and it wasn't before they were back walking in the street that she got able to take a look at him. He gave her what was supposedly his mostly annoyed available glance, anything above that being probably straightly followed by murder. 

"I'll talk to Ian," were the only words he eventually addressed her before climbing in his car, not even bothering to check if she'd climb in hers safely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this! Tbh I'm not sure yet of how many chapters it will take, so let's see where it leads us...


	2. The Bitch Is Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get complicated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize that last chapter was a little elliptic about what happened in the closet (because it's Beth's POV and we all know how prudish she can be), so just to make sure that we're all on the same page here: Rio got an involuntary erection from holding Beth against him, and she felt it. That's it. That's the plot. Please don't judge me.

Annie almost choked on her wine while listening to Beth's account of the events from the past week, and her glass hit the coffee table with a loud knocking sound as she miscalculated the distance when she dropped it back in front of her.

"Oh my God, are you sure it wasn't his _gun_?" she asked with the over-excitement that only transpired from her when she was already far drunk.

Ruby rolled panicked eyes, "Please tell us it was his gun!" she begged.

"Believe me, it wasn't his gun!" a fairly drunk Beth giggled, finishing her glass of wine.

"Gross!" Ruby hissed.

Annie was uncontrollably jumping up and down at this point.

"But what did you do? Come on, girl, people want to know!"

"Nothing!"

"Have you told Scott about that?" Ruby asked with a slightly concerned face.

Beth bit her lips. Scott was her... yeah, her boyfriend. She still had trouble at saying the word, as if it didn't feel completely right. She didn't have had a boyfriend since high school, though, so that probably explained the awkwardness of it. And Rio didn't count, despite Annie's insistence. After the whole I-shot-the-man-I-used-to-screw fiasco, and the divorce officialization, the girls had talked Beth into getting back in the game. Not the criminal one. The _booty stock exchange_ , as Annie called it. Her sister had even managed to sign her up on some online dating apps, Ruby having kept a neutral opinion on that matter and refused to be a part of anything. But after a couple of disastrous dates, Beth had given up, unwilling to relive creepy meetings with complete strangers. She'd met Scott shortly after though, at one of Kenny's friends birthday party, and she'd found him funny, and nice, and handsome... but she wasn't exactly looking for any kind of romantic involvement at that time, so she'd sworn in front of the girls that he was only a new friend. A great one though. Annie had ironically snorted at that, and indeed, it hadn't taken long for Beth to surrender to Scott's warm gaze and emerald green eyes, and they'd been dating ever since. Which meant almost a year, that is, her second longest relationship after Dean. 

And it was... it was nice, and so different from what she'd gotten used to with her ex-husband. Scott _respected_ her, he valued her opinions, and she could use the change. Obviously, their interactions didn't reach the electric intensity she'd experienced with Rio, but come on, that would be _exhausting_! Scott had really helped her to move on, he'd showed her that she had more options than only Dean's dumbness or Rio's darkness, and it felt good. It had kept her at a professional distance from Rio once he'd come back into her life. Which was why she was quite concerned with how easily she'd fallen back into their old patterns in that closet, how much she had enjoyed provoking him with slightly sensuous teasing and mocking giggles. She hadn't even told the girls about that part of the closet incident, and she didn't intend to.

"Hey, why should I tell Scott anything? Nothing happened!" Beth protested, blushing, "Besides, do you realize the explaining I'd have to do to even _justify_ hiding in a closet from some violent crime snitch?"

"Don't you think that you should tell him a couple of things at some point though?" Annie pointed out, "I mean, you don't have to mention Rio's big di—"

"Ladies..."

Beth, Annie and Ruby startled and spilled wine all around with a remarkable synchronization at Rio's Oscar-level dramatic entrance. Beth immediately blushed intensely at the thought that he'd probably been hiding in the shadows for a while, listening to their conversation and Annie's obsessive — and rather unhealthy to a disturbing level — curiosity for the size of his penis. And the worst part was that he had managed to embarrass _her_ , showing up in the middle of a story that should have been utterly shameful for him. God, how did he even do that? Rio's mouth stretched into a satisfied smirk before he locked eyes with Beth and his expression darkened.

"Can we talk?" he asked, nodding towards the backyard door and looking the most annoyed with her she'd ever seen him.

Although to be fair, she hadn't seen him since the closet incident.

"I'm _hosting_ ," she icily protested.

She didn't want him to fall back into his old habit of showing up unannounced at her place. Their clockwork-regular pattern was working fine these days, and there was no need to bring further entropy to this.

"It won't be long," he replied, his bossy tone telling her that declining was not an available option.

She reluctantly followed him outside and he handed her a brown paper envelope.

"Here. That what Ian had on you. I talked to him and his crew won't bother you anymore. Though I had to set a lil deal for that, so I'm adding this extra hundred grand to your debt, yeah?"

"Wait, you can't do that!" she protested, "I'll never see the end of it!"

"Then work harder in the future, or be smart enough to avoid stalkers," he lectured her, and she gave him a furious glance.

"This is not fair and you know it!" she spat, "Couldn't we at least share the loss? I mean, you were supposed to be the one knowing how to retrieve these for free in his office!"

He seemed almost... _surprised_ by her resistance to his decisions. He looked away, thoughtfully chewing his bottom lip, before his gaze came back at her, intimidating and dismissive.

"Nah... It's all on you, Elizabeth. Always is."

He disappeared in the darkness before she could react to the fact that he'd called her by her name. For the first time since the night she'd shot him.

She didn't see him outside of cash drops for a while after that, although these were happening a little more frequently now that she had an extra and unexpected hundred grand to clean off her debt. He didn't mention anything about the Ian situation ever again during the next few times they saw each other, and she was perfectly fine with that. She'd rather have died than actually ask what he'd overheard from Annie's rambling during girls night.

Fortunately, she had other, non criminal things to think about and keep her mind busy. She was particularly excited when the kids school joined forces with five other institutions in the neighborhood to throw a charity event in order to raise funds for orphans in Philippines. Or maybe Indonesia, she couldn't remember. She wasn't a part of the organizational committee for once — too much fake cash to launder at the time — which meant that all she had to do was enjoying her fancy night out with Scott without freaking out about lost invites or delays in flyers printing. And she definitely intended to, already savoring her glass of Champagne at the welcome cocktail party when... her eyelids fluttered with exasperation. God, could she ever catch a break?

"Evenin'."

Rio had just materialized from the guests crowd and she swallowed back her annoyance.

"Hi!" she greeted with her fakest smile, "Scott, honey, this is Rio, my... boss," — the two men shook hand quite unconvincingly— "And you are..." she added towards the beautiful girl who was standing by Rio's side.

"Trisha," the latter immediately answered, giving her a warm handshake and a welcoming smile.

"I'm Beth," she eventually introduced herself when she realize that Rio wouldn't even make that effort.

Beth took one second to look closely at Trisha. Not to _gauge_ her. Fine, not _only_ to gauge her. But that was a natural reaction, right? Just some curiosity with no hard feelings, obviously. Trisha seemed to be about Rio's age, maybe a little younger, probably in her early thirties. She was tall, almost Rio's height, skinny, with dark hair and almond-shaped brown eyes surrounded by caramel skin. Small well-shaped breasts for what Beth could see, and slim waist.

She shook her head in disbelief. Did Rio have a type, like, at all? That girl was literally her exact opposite, which was... unsettling. She didn't know how to interpret that. Either it meant that Beth had been a bump on the road in Rio's life, or maybe this woman was only a stand-in for the night, or maybe Rio just liked all types of women. She honestly didn't know which explanation she hated the most. And by the way, _what the hell_ was Rio doing here?

She took the opportunity to follow him when he excused himself to the bar, leaving Scott and Trisha to some small talk.

"Are you following me everywhere?" she angrily asked Rio once they were out of hearing range from their respective dates, "Because I don't see the point of trading one stalker for another!"

He gave her a dismayed look, one suggesting that she was the kind of people who made dramatic scandals over miscellaneous facts.

"Marcus goes to North Bridge," he slowly replied, overly rational.

Oh. She shook her head as if it could scatter the awkwardness like a bunch of flies. She always forgot that between two murders and three pills smuggling operations, Rio had a family and PTA meetings to attend. And obviously school charity dinners too.

"That makes sense," she admitted, "I'm sorry, I just didn't expect to find you here."

He smirked, "Yeah... Can't say the same, unfortunately."

She looked for something to say which would sound vaguely civilized.

"Well, it's nice to see that you eventually found someone. It's good for you," she negligently said with a detached shake of her head.

At this point, sending every signal telling that seeing him with a beautiful girl at his arm wasn't upsetting her at all, even the slightest, was a matter of personal pride.

"Who said I was single before?" he pointed out with a smirk, and she bit her lip.

That was a low one, but fair enough.

She sighed with contempt, "Great! Another cheater. That would at least give you one thing in common with Dean!"

"You mean besides fuckin' you?" he immediately replied, cynical.

Even lower. She swallowed. She'd tried to be nice, but if he insisted so much on playing dirty, then he'd get what he'd asked for.

"Please!" she snorted, "You never fucked me. If anything, _I_ fucked you. And last time I checked, it seemed like you were still pretty much into it," he raised one eyebrow and she stepped further into provocation, "You know, there's a cupboard on the left side of the entrance wall. Just in case you have an emergency... I'm sure that Trisha would love to know about your taste for enclosed spaces!" she added, not even trying to hide the hint of threat in her voice.

"And I'm sure Scott would love to know 'bout what you were actually doin' with me in a closet," he threw back.

Fuck. She'd forgotten that he'd overheard her chat with the girls on the other night. Beginner's mistake, she cursed herself.

"Don't," she warned him.

He shrugged, "Then don't act funny 'round my girl."

She thought that Mexican standoffs had never been so appropriately named. He walked past her, and after a few seconds of processing, she shook her head and looked for Scott in the crowd. She could survive that night, she just had to avoid bumping into Rio as much as possible. It would probably not be that difficult, based on how Rio seemed to mirror her reluctance.

She spent the rest of the cocktail with Scott and a bunch of PTA acquaintances, standing the furthest away from Rio that she could without actually leaving the room. There was an unexpected turn of events when it came to the seated dinner though. And especially the _seating plan_.

"You've got to be kidding me!" she muttered under her breath when she realized the ineluctable catastrophe ahead.

Obviously, in a party gathering almost two hundred people, Scott and her _had to_ be seated at the same table as Rio and Trisha. Plus apparently Richard and Ella, two other guests she didn't know but hoped they would provide enough conversation to dissipate the awkwardness. She sat down, frantically looking all around her and hoping to see someone, anyone, showing up at their table so that she wouldn't have to even speak to Rio. As it turned out later, Richard and Ella had cancelled their presence at the very last minute, but Beth ignored it, so she kept avoiding everyone's look until it became frankly rude to pretend that the world around her didn't exist. And Scott seemed to be more than curious about his dinner companions.

"So are you from corporate?" he asked Rio once starters were served, Beth having reviewed with him every possible food and wine-related topic she could think of.

Rio raised his eyebrows, subtly annoyed and interrupted from his own small talk with his date, "What?"

"Oh you don't have to pretend, she told me about that secret shopping thing," Scott explained with a wink, "I mean, she's not in troubles for that, is she?"

"Nah, it's cool," Rio said with a smirk and a quick, mocking glance at Beth that had her digging her nails deep in her napkin.

Despite Annie and Ruby's regular reminders that she should come true, Scott still didn't know anything about the real nature of her criminal activities. At first she'd covered up with a secret shopping excuse which at least gave an easy explanation for her erratic schedules and incomes patterns. And, well, _of course_ she wouldn't tell the truth to someone she'd just met an started to date, she wasn't going to make the same mistake Annie did with Noah. But then, as time had gone by, she'd just delayed it. It never was the right time, until she came to a point where saying anything would have ruined it all. She'd been lying to Scott for almost a year now, was there any coming back from that? Sure it wasn't healthy, but hey, she was trying, okay? Maybe she'd tell him someday. When the bond between them would be strong enough to absorb the energy of the shock. But their relationship was still too fragile for that yet, so she silently prayed that Rio wouldn't say anything.

She didn't get a chance to placate a new inoffensive topic in the conversation, though, since Scott was apparently eager to know more about Beth's professional life and skills.

"I bet she does a great job, doesn't she? I mean, she's so good at talking people into stuff, just like the other day she convinced me to go to that fancy Mexican place when I was just in the mood for Chinese take-away!"

Rio raised an eyebrow, "Elizabeth? Yeah, she's just _killin'_ it in her lane..." turning his gaze at Beth, he added, "I didn't know you had a thing for Mexican... stuff, though."

Beth didn't know how to answer _that_ but Scott came to her rescue without even knowing it, "Wait, he calls you Elizabeth? You told me that _everyone_ called you Beth!" he questioned her before turning to Rio and Trisha, "It's actually a funny story, I didn't even know that her full first name was Elizabeth before I accidentally ran into her driver's license on the kitchen table!"

"Yeah, she's such a born liar, huh?" Rio ironically dropped, with a tone which would suggest to anyone but Beth that he was joking.

She cleared her throat, gently smiling at Scott, "Oh, everyone _does_ call me Beth, honey. Rio is just really _not_ into nicknames."

Her eyes flashed daring anger at him and he gave her an annoyingly innocent smile.

"That's because you don't know him the way I do!" Trisha cheerfully intervened, "Right, darling?" she added, placing a hand on Rio's, and meeting his loving smile with an equally tender one.

"Well, that sounds logic," Scott replied, "I mean, who would petname their employees, huh?"

As if moved by a magnetic force, Beth's eyes immediately met Rio's, and the intensity of the gaze they exchanged at this moment, filled with unspoken memories, stole her breath. It wasn't agreeing on a truce though, so she pushed the current topic away, looking for retaliation, preferentially not involving her professional life.

"But enough with me!" she exclaimed, feigning embarrassment, "What about you, Trisha? Do you know Rio from work too?"

"Actually, I do," Trisha said with an adorable smile, and Beth's eyes widened. 

She'd always assumed that Rio was not the kind to mix business with pleasure, that her personal experience was some sort of accident which had extensively proved itself wrong. She'd never had guessed that it was a habit from him, not to mention how someone who seemed as nice and genuine as Trisha could swim in such dark and shady waters. 

Hence she was absolutely not expecting the young woman's further explanation, "I work as a nurse in St Andrews Hospital. The police brought him in one night, some thugs had shot him thrice in the chest, can you believe that? I mean, something definitely has to be done about gun control in this country. Anyway, he was my patient for months, and he asked me out the day he left the hospital."

Scott awww-ed, and Beth just wished the earth could swallow her. She wasn't ready for that. She tried to control her panicked breaths and her spreading blush when she accidentally met Rio's eyes, his sardonic smirk somehow daring her to strike harder after that. She managed to resist her urge to excuse herself to the bathroom, though, maintaining her demeanor.

"I'm so sorry to hear that," she casually replied, nodding at Rio, "Did you get involved in a fight or something?"

She knew this was a slippery slope but what else was she supposed to do?

"Actually I think it was more the bad place bad time kind of thing, you know? These bullets were probably intended for somebody else," he drawled with a ferocious look at her.

Beth suddenly realized that the fact that they'd spent more or less a year pretending it never happened, that they'd never actually _discussed_ the choice she'd made that night, it didn't mean that they were over it. At least Rio clearly wasn't. He was _furious_. And that he'd met Trisha right after that, it was... well, she couldn't reproach him to have moved on, just like she had with Scott, but at least she'd have appreciated some _mourning_ time from him. Even if she'd almost killed him, it wasn't exactly flattering to see how quickly he'd... no, not a good idea to keep going on that track of thoughts.

"Or maybe you just pissed them off? Took them by surprise?" she suggested, cocking an eyebrow, before she forced a gentle smile, "You're lucky to have made it through, then."

He chuckled with an approving nod, "Yeah, looks like they really wanted me down... Good thing they weren't so good at aimin' though, right?"

Beth guffawed, "Man, street gangs aren't what they used to be anymore! I'm sure the poor rogues learned how to shoot with one of these arrogant minor thugs who think they're superior just because they hold a gun and look scary!"

Both Trisha and Scott laughed, and Rio kept a poker face but his pissed gaze conceded her the point.

He hummed before he suddenly changed the subject, "What 'bout you guys? How did you two meet?"

"I'm afraid our story isn't as cute as yours," Scott giggled, "My sister's kids and Beth's go to the same school, so we met at my nephew's birthday party."

Beth was looking for something sharp to add, preferentially involving something about a bouncing house, but Scott, who was definitely too curious, spoke again.

"Speaking of the devil, I guess that the two of you have kids too since you're here tonight?" he asked.

"Oh Rio's got a wonderful little Marcus," Trisha replied, "But we don't have children together, I mean... not yet," she giggled, leaning her head against Rio's shoulder.

Beth suddenly suffocated, as if she'd forgotten how to bring fresh air in her lungs. She'd never thought that Rio could eventually wish to start a new family with someone, and she didn't know what to do with that thought. She'd never have guessed that it would hurt so much, although she didn't know why. Maybe this had to do with her knowing that whoever she'd date in the future, this option would never be on the table for her anymore. Not that she entertained that idea though, no, she'd had her full share of kids already. But if this was some kind of weird who's-got-the-best-rebound exes contest going on between her and Rio, then Trisha had just thrown the ultimate answer to the eternal question. _What does she have that I don't?_

And it didn't make her _jealous_ , not exactly. That would be ridiculous. There was nothing going on between her and Rio anymore. But she was definitely pissed off. As the dinner went by, she oriented the discussion on some kids-related topics, which had the double advantage of being a safe option — Rio wouldn't risk any kind of innuendo involving her kids — and subtly excluding Trisha from this quite selective parenthood club. Incidentally, it also excluded Scott, who didn't have kids of his own either, but the latter was just collateral damage. And she didn't revive the fight. She'd had enough for the night.

Dating Scott had taught her a few things. For years, Beth had thought that she wasn't the kind of people who could be described as bedroom enthusiasts. Then she'd slept with Rio and she'd supposed that _he_ was different. But with Scott, she'd discovered that Dean had been the problem the whole time. Not that Rio and Scott were at all comparable on that field, but... yeah, she enjoyed her time in bed pretty much with the latter, showed a willingness that she'd never thought would be a part of her life.

But that night, when they both came back to her place from the charity dinner, talking about enthusiasm would have been an understatement. She was _frenetic_ , and trying really hard not to think about the reasons behind. Scott seemed pleasantly surprised with her outburst of attraction for him, but of course he didn't know. He couldn't fathom why she was frantically kissing his neck, her tongue mapping absent inked lines, he'd never guess why she pulled his face in _her_ neck, and urged him to take her right there, on the kitchen table. He didn't notice the way she pursed her lips when she came, too afraid to let the wrong name slip out, her eyes closed on images far ago from Scott's era.

"We should do that more often," he whispered in her ear as she was limp in his arms, her forehead on his shoulder while she was recovering from her orgasm, one of the strongest she'd had in a while.

She didn't answer immediately, swallowing her shame for what she'd just done. Scott was a nice guy and she liked him. A lot. He didn't deserve that from her, that Dean-ish state of mind. But she just couldn't help it, the back and forth jibe-throwing between Rio and her was too infuriating and arousing at the same time. She had forgotten how his challenging eyes and ironic drawls had the power to set her on fire. How playing that game empowered her. She'd thought that it was all gone ever since she'd shot him, but obviously. It was still there. Inescapable.

She softly kissed Scott, knowing that he couldn't see the mist of sadness in her eyes in the relative darkness of the kitchen.

"We'll see about that," she muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Elton John


	3. Cold As Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's that word again, when you refuse to admit something that is obvious for everyone? Ugh, I've got it on the tip of my tongue... Oh right. _Denial._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I'm indulging myself with this fic, it's so much fun to write!!! I hope you have fun at reading it too!!

_"What's so funny, Elizabeth?"_

_Her giggles slowly turned into languid panting when Rio's mouth brushed her ear. His warm breath was caressing the skin of her cheeks in a way that made her want to just turn her head and kiss him._

_"I can't believe that we're risking our lives in here and all you can think about is fucking me!" she whispered._

_"Who said I want to fuck you, sweetheart?" he playfully asked, pressing his crotch a little harder against her ass._

_She bent her head backwards, a small whimper escaping her lips and causing his hand to firmly muffle any sound coming from her mouth._

_"You forget that there's a whole world outside this closet, dear," he chuckled._

_One hand still pressing against her mouth, the other one darted south, smoothly sliding against the silky fabric of her dress until his fingers pressed against her crotch. She jolted in surprise with a little squeak and he slightly increased the pressure on her mouth in response. Her heart racing, she tried to calm down with controlled breaths but soon his fingers circled her clit again and her eyes fluttered closed._

_"You like that, Elizabeth, don't you?" he whispered._

_She gasped._

_"I wanna hear you say it. C'mon baby, say it!"_

_His fingers left her mouth to linger around her throat and his lips brushed her cheek. The pleasure was slowly building inside of her, and she waved her hips against his fingers, playing with his touch._

_"Tell me whatchu want," he insisted, the pressure on her clit vanishing at the same time._

_"Please don't stop," she hoarsely begged, whining in frustration._

_"Say it, Elizabeth!"_

_His hiss was merciless and a thrill ran through her body when she let out the words he was waiting for._

_"You! I want you!"_

_His fingers came back, torturing her in the sweetest way, and she felt the tip of his tongue at the corner of her mouth. She licked and parted her lips before she turned her head, meeting his mouth in a bruising kiss with a gasp. She desperately moaned under the wetness of his tongue, the softness of his lips and the burning of his hands on her, and..._

Beth's eyes opened wide in the darkness of the middle of the night, and it took her a while to remember where and who she was. The images of her dream were still surrounding her thoughts, and even Rio's cologne seemed to linger, impregnating her olfactory abilities. But it couldn't be.

She briefly rolled her eyes at Scott's head resting on the pillow next to her, his Grecian profile catching fragments of light coming from the streetlamps outside and she sighed. The dream was disturbing. Just like sometimes, when she'd randomly dream about some acquaintance's death and then come across that person during the following day. It'd always feel super weird, as if she wasn't sure of where reality lied anymore. The dream was that kind of disturbing, but for other reasons.

She'd already said these exact same words, in that exact same bed. To the exact same man, and by this she didn't mean the man currently sleeping by her side. A memory coming straight from a past intimacy she wanted to forget, and yet her brilliant mind couldn't find anything better than mixing it with some recent developments, which... she shrugged. She didn't want to think about it beyond strict necessity. It was just a dream and nothing else. It didn't _have to_ mean anything. But just in that instant another memory flashed in her brain, one involving Rio's tongue, her bra and some very, very dirty words, and she involuntarily whimpered.

Well, okay, that was new. It seemed like she'd kinda not been herself since that charity dinner two weeks before. Maybe even ever since the closet incident, now that she was thinking about it. She couldn't deny that Rio had starred in her thoughts more often within the past few weeks than during the whole past year. But surely, it was nothing. She'd just gotten too used to having cold, limited interactions with him, so the least accidental bump on the road would destabilize her. That was just... temporary adjustment. Nothing to worry about.

Comfortably settling on her side of the bed, she closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

To be fair, Beth didn't think that she was the only one being bothered by the unexpected series of events that had led her to dive again in some back-and-forth obsolete mechanics. Rio had been blatantly as annoyed as her in the days following the school event, at least for what she got to see of him. He'd practically ignored her over their next drop, almost pushing his ghosting mode to the point of saying _Hi_ through Demon. He'd avoided her gaze, his face as dark as his outfit, and honestly? She was more than okay with it. She'd spent the whole dinner aftermath dreading that Rio would take a renewed taste to their past flirtatious interactions, and she wasn't sure she would handle it appropriately. That would ruin all that new life she'd patiently built over the past year and a half.

She'd already had to avert an imminent catastrophe on the morning after the charity. Scott had started to ask _questions_ about Rio, suggesting that he _liked_ him or something.

"That Rio guy from last night seemed nice," Scott had told her, his elbows leaning against the kitchen island as she was adding chocolate chunks to a whole bowl of raw cookie dough.

"Huh huh," she'd neutrally replied.

"I'm surprised that a guy like him works for superstores corporate, though. I mean, have you seen how he looks? You'd think he's a gang leader or something," he'd giggled.

The dough was probably over-kneaded by the time Beth's hands had stopped shaking. Good thing that Scott ignored that cookie dough doesn't really need kneading, right? However, her voice had been neat when she'd replied, perfectly combined with an absent-minded vibe suggesting that a small-talk label was the highest achievement this discussion topic could ever reach.

"Oh you know, they really have a wide hiring policy," she'd said, negligently on purpose.

"I guess... Yeah, that would explain some of Annie's co-workers," he'd guffawed, "Anyway, Rio and Trisha were really fun, and he seemed to appreciate your good work in the company. Maybe you should invite them over for dinner someday, we could double-date?" Scott had suggested.

She'd seen that coming from the start. She'd waited for the shoe to drop with a paralyzed fascination for the sight of that increasingly closer iceberg that would sooner or later collide with the Titanic of her compartmented life.

She'd shaken her head, obsessively cutting perfectly-shaped cookies on the baking sheet, "I'm sure he was just being nice. Actually I don't really know him very well, we don't... directly work together, you know."

She'd closed the oven door on the full baking tray and untied her apron.

"Besides, we don't need new people to double-date with, honey," she'd told him with a sweet smile, placing her arms around his neck, "We already have Stan and Ruby or your sister and her husband. Not to mention Annie and her Dude of the Month!"

Scott had smiled, nodding to her point, and his hands had pressed her middle back as she'd kissed him, diverting his attention from any Rio-related topic. It wasn't that she _liked_ lying to Scott, but she didn't really have a choice. And it was such a familiar, effortless second nature that she barely noticed anymore the moments her speech slightly deviated from honest truth.

Plus Scott was so gullible sometimes! Even if he did notice that she was a little bit jumpy during the days following her dream, he trusted her enough to buy her instantly made up explanations. It was almost... disappointing, the way Scott believed her whatever she'd say. It was a sinful incentive, tempting her to go deeper into elaborate lies, see how far she could go until the mask would fall. It wasn't exactly _healthy_ , Annie and Ruby kept lecturing her about this, but it was so much _fun_. And sometimes there was this little voice inside reminding her of how quickly Rio would have sorted the truth from her lies, but... enough with that.

So. Back to that dream aftermath. She was still in a strange dreamlike mood in the afternoon, wandering through the almost empty aisles of an organic grocery store midtown she sometimes went to when she needed fancy baking ingredients she couldn't find elsewhere. Emma's new friend from school, April, was a vegan, gluten-free something, so Beth had had to adjust some of her treats recipes for whenever April would come over. And then Emma had started to ask why _she_ had to eat gluten and dairies. She sighed. Honestly, parenting was way more simpler when people didn't know a thing about gluten. Anyway. Somehow, Rio's presence was still lingering in some corner of her mind, so it didn't surprise her at first when she spotted a remotely familiar silhouette in the energy bars section. And it was already too late when she realized that she should have walked straight to the opposite direction. The woman was looking at her with a frown, and Beth put on her best smile.

"Trisha, right?" she said, reluctantly offering a hand-shake.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm not sure I remember your name," Trisha said with a genuine apologetic wince, "I'll take a shot with Liz?"

Beth giggled, "Not that part of Elizabeth, but you're close!"

"Oh, so Beth it is. Right," Trisha nodded.

Beth couldn't care less, but Trisha really looked devastated from forgetting her name. They both stared at each other with the embarrassed cringe of two people who just realize that they don't have anything to say to each other aside from _Hi_ , and Beth was about to leave and cut the awkwardness when Trisha spoke again.

"Actually it's nice to meet you here because I've got a question for you."

Beth frowned, "Me?"

"Yeah, I remember that the other night you mentioned this chunky chocolate brownie recipe that your kids love, and, hum... this is embarrassing, but I was wondering if you could maybe send it to me? It's for Marcus, Rio's son. His birthday is tomorrow and chocolate brownies are his favorites... Actually they're also his dad's favorites," she blushed, "It's a surprise of course, otherwise I would have asked Rio for your number. Gosh, I'm so lucky to have found you, I spent the morning struggling over the internet, it seems like every culinary blog is contradicting the others!"

There were so many disturbing things in what Trisha had just said that Beth didn't know where to start. She opened her mouth, taken off-guard and suffocating like a goldfish that would have jumped out of its aquarium.

"I... Do you _bake_?" she eventually asked, her eyes widening.

"Oh, I probably don't have your skills, I'm more like an occasional baker," Trisha smiled, and Beth remembered that she did had spent quite a lot of time describing her kids' favorite treats over the charity dinner.

The things that too much wine and a hurt ego make you do! Beth quickly pulled herself together.

"Yeah, no problem. As a matter of fact you won't find that recipe on the internet, it comes from an old cooking book which was my mother's... It's kind of my secret weapon," she winked.

"Oh thank you so much, that would be perfect!"

Trisha gave her an enthusiastic hug and Beth couldn't repress an instinctive recoil. She didn't _dislike_ Trisha, she even had to admit that she was really nice, she just... wanted to stay as far away as she could from anything related to Rio. Especially when she'd just had a sex dream about him the night before.

"I'm so grateful, I don't know how to thank you," Trisha said again, "Maybe someday you and your husband could come over for dinner? Rio is so secretive about his friends, I'm glad to know at least some of them!"

Beth internally rolled her eyes. What was with that double date obsession they all seemed to have? Was this a conspiracy?

"Oh, Scott and I are not married," she chuckled, deciding to ignore Trisha's blatant invitation.

Impatient to leave the young woman's surroundings, Beth quickly gave her her number and was already literally running to the check-out when she suddenly turned back, out of an impulse.

"Oh, and Trisha?"

"Yes?"

Beth swallowed. She knew that this was suicidal, but she just couldn't help it.

"Say Happy Birthday to Marcus for me, will you?"

Trisha smiled, "Sure."

Beth cursed herself all the way back home. What was wrong with her? As if she knew that child, like, at all. As if Rio would be chill with the idea that she was in any way involved with his son's birthday. As if... As if it fucking didn't hurt to learn about Rio's favorite cake through his better-informed perfect girlfriend. Rio couldn't ignore that she baked _a lot_. And yet, he'd never told her that, while they'd met countless times over food, while she'd even offered once to bake him a sandwich. That was utterly frustrating. Maybe even a little bit offensive.

If she was being truly honest with herself, she knew where that sudden impulse came from. She didn't have regrets for shooting Rio. But she had felt sorry for the kid in the following months. So maybe contributing in her own way into making his birthday with his father as perfect and enjoyable as possible, give him that, it was the least she could do. But again. Not that she felt guilty or anything. She just... she wanted to be nice to Marcus, what was the harm with that?

By the time Beth made it home, Trisha had already texted her with her own number. Because of course she did. Beth quickly sent the recipe, unwilling to dwell on that for too long. She almost immediately sent a follow up message, suggesting that Trisha was totally welcome to claim the brownies recipe as hers, hiding her refusal of public aknowledgement under false modesty. That was probably Beth's safest option because, who was she fooling? There would be consequences for stepping into Rio's forbidden territory like she just did.

The aforementioned consequences materialized even sooner than she'd expected. Two days after her unexpected encounter with Trisha in the grocery store, Rio casually sat on the bench next to her while she was watching the kids at the park. He hadn't done that since before everything had gone wild. And the last time she'd _seen_ him, for lack of a better word, was, well, in her dream. Pushing away as far as she could the memory of how his mouth had felt against her ear, she swallowed, casting him a brief glance aside before looking straight in front of her. She cleared her throat, but he didn't let her speak, his voice harsh and cold.

"So you havin' chit-chat with my girlfriend now?"

Beth had known from the start that Rio would eventually find out. And the chances that he'd be pleased by the news were clearly standing below zero. And yet, she still had troubles at being cool with his suspicious annoyance.

"She told you?" she eventually replied, her voice even despite her building anger.

Rio let out a throaty chuckle.

"She didn't have to. That whole decadent pastry shit literally screamed Elizabeth Boland."

Well, that was somehow flattering to know that her baking wore a recognizable trademark. Maybe she even had a signature dish. Although she didn't like his despising tone, fueling her need for being purposely fussy about insignificant details.

"It's Marks now," she said with a slight wave of her golden curls, still not looking at him.

"What?"

"My last name. I got divorced," she explained with an dreamy voice.

If she was trying to piss him off with this, she had succeeded. His voice was even sharper when he spoke again.

"Yeah, I don't give a shit. But you better stop stalkin' Trisha, you hear me?"

"Hey, I didn't do anything!" Beth protested, turning her head to give him an angry look, "We ran into each other at the grocery store, and _she_ asked for the recipe!"

His lips stretched into an ironical smile and her eyes lingered maybe half a second too long on it, her mind suddenly overflowed with flashbacks of their kiss in her dream. She instinctively licked her lips at the thought before she pulled herself together with a shocked hiccup at her own behavior.

"Yeah, I ain't buyin' that," he cruelly said.

She raised her eyebrows, astonished, "Why don't you just _ask_ her, then? It was a coincidence, I swear."

He clicked his tongue with a hint of threat in his eyes as he made eye-contact with her, "See... the thing is, I know you, Elizabeth. You sneaky. So I dunno why you after her, but you ain't doin' that anymore. And you won't get a second warning."

For an instant she lost herself in his cold threatening gaze, her own anger growing inside of her. The fact that he didn't believe her was a challenge _per se_. And the gravel in his low voice as he'd threatened her definitely reminded her of his teasing drawls when he'd... oh please, enough with that!

"I am _not_ stalking your girlfriend, this is absurd," she eventually icily replied with a defying look, "Why would I even do that?"

He shrugged, looking away and burying his hands deep into his pockets, "Who knows. Wouldn't be the first time you doin' absurd shit with no reason, huh?"

She shook her head with astonishment. Was this even for real? She couldn't believe his audacity. From someone who'd done things as absurd as mailing her body parts to prove a point or kidnap her in the middle of the night, that was hilarious. The man was the definition of instability. And as far as she'd remembered, there had always been some logic behind _her_ actions.

"Like what?" she asked.

"Oh you want a list or summin'?" he replied, wrapped in sarcasm.

She was looking for something mean to throw back at him when Jane's shrieking voice interrupted her thoughts, "Mommy, look what I can do!"

The little girl clumsily wheeled on the lawn and Beth smiled at her encouragingly.

"You're killing it, sweetie!" she enthusiastically exclaimed although her daughter's performance was far from accurate.

She kept her eyes on the children for a while, her smile gradually vanishing as the bitter mood of her harsh talk with Rio overtook the sweet joy of watching her offspring romping around.

"Your kids are cute," Rio said after a silence, "Hopefully they won't develop your deceitfulness when they grow up."

This time it was too much, she was sick of his arrogance, his need for control. Ulcerated with frustration, Beth couldn't repress the words that made their way out of her mouth before she even realized it.

"Don't be jealous," she snorted, "I'm sure Florence Nightingale will give you beautiful, trustworthy children who'll grow up just as obnoxious as you are."

Judging from the way he was looking at her, she'd clearly stepped over a forbidden boundary but she didn't care. Mentioning Rio's hypothetic, unborn kids wasn't a big strike anyway. She could definitely hit harder.

"By the way, I hope that Marcus liked the brownies," she added with an innocent smile.

She didn't need to formulate any kind of threat or innuendo about him. She knew that the simple mention of Marcus's existence would be enough to infuriate his father. Maybe a little too much, on second thought. Rio's look was murderous, and she was pretty sure that he'd have killed her right there if she wasn't, well, _her_ , if they didn't share so much history which he somehow seemed to respect. He stood up, towering her with a mixed expression of deathly threat and contempt which turned his face into a living allegory for disgust.

"Stay the hell away from my family, Elizabeth," he coldly warned her before he left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, this is just foreplay...
> 
> Chapter title from Foreigner's song.


	4. She's My Kind Of Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Never, ever, tell Beth Boland _not_ to do something...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter will be the death of me, I just can't take all those spoilers anymore! 😱😱😱😭😭😭🤯🤯🤯
> 
> So I'm trying really hard not to think about S3 and keep my mindset from before when I'm writing this, but I'm not gonna lie, it's getting harder, although I've already planned the whole story. So my update pace might slow down because as a result it takes me longer to get back to the mood I want for this story...

"I'm sorry B, but I have to say that I'm on team homeboy on this one. On some level I kinda understand his point," a sententious Annie let out, her furrowed eyebrows emphasizing the concentrated expression on her face.

Beth loudly put her glass down and looked at her sister in disbelief of her betrayal.

"What?"

"I mean, I believe you, Beth, this is not an accusation. But there are like a million people in town. What are the odds?" Annie pointed out, raising her eyebrows.

"It's less than a million people," Ruby dismissively replied with a wave of her head, although Beth couldn't tell if her friend was standing on her side or just rooting for accuracy.

Annie ignored her as she kept speaking, though, "And, you don't exactly have the best track record regarding stalking Gangfriend!"

"It's actually 672,000," Ruby added, her eyes on the screen of her phone.

"Hey, easy with the fact-checking, okay?" Annie protested.

"Guys! Can we focus?"

The annoyance in Beth's loud exclamation had the girls raising surprised eyes.

"Why does this upset you so much?" Annie softly asked, frowning, "It's not like you still care about Gangfriend's opinion anymore, do you?"

"No! Not at all," Beth assured with maybe a little too much eagerness for it to sound completely true, "But I just didn't—"

The sound of the front door opening interrupted her. An instant later, Scott was entering the living room, a bag coming straight from dry-cleaning stuck under his left arm. 

"Hey," he whispered, gently kissing Beth's forehead.

"Oh my God, does he _live_ here now?" Annie hissed in a perfectly audible murmur.

"I don't know but this is super weird!" Ruby whispered back with bulging eyes, "It's like new-Dean is home."

"Totes," Annie agreed, vigorously nodding.

Beth decidedly ignored them. One issue at a time. She pulled on a greeting smile, pushing Trisha and her argument with Rio at the backseat of her concerns.

"Hi, honey! Thank you for picking up my dry cleaning!"

"No problem, it's on my way from work," he shrugged. An excited expression suddenly spread across his face, "Oh, and guess who I ran into back there? Trisha, from that charity dinner, remember? Like, what are the odds, right?"

A little choked gasp escaped from Annie, but Beth did not falter. Maybe deep down she'd always known.

She slowly nodded, a feral grin on her lips, "Yeah, I remember her. That's so funny! What are the odds, indeed?"

Saying that Beth was pissed-off was an understatement. She was _furious_. After she'd spent half an hour trying to talk Scott out of his renewed idea of hanging out with Rio and Trisha in a near future — God, she liked him a lot but his neediness for a new social circle was _so_ annoying! — she fulminated in front of the supportive audience that were Annie and Ruby. She'd never liked being scolded. As if anyone did, anyway. But Rio's chiding could pass as... acceptable, for lack of a better word, whenever she'd done something which could be considered as a mistake. Provided a very specific angle and perspective, but whatever. Not that she had deserved him yelling at her, like ever, but at least the roots of his justification for it were understandable. Except that regarding this very specific encounter with Trisha at the grocery store, she _knew_ that her appetite for scheming was not responsible. Not this time. Hence Rio's stupid belief that it was on her, as he'd made it crystal clear, it already had the potential to piss her off to a massive extent.

But she'd managed to keep in under control ever since their talk at the park, perhaps for the sake of the quiet dynamics she and Rio had built over the past year. Things had already been shattered enough with that stupid closet incident, no need to pour more kerosene on that beginning of a fire. So she'd absorbed it, swallowed her pride and her need for being right. But. This was an explicit declaration of war, it couldn't be a fucking coincidence, right? Not twice. And what would come next?

_'Oh I just happened to have my nails polished in your salon, it's so funny that I know your best friend from that gala!'_

_'I live across town, but this specific Fine and Frugal grocery store makes the best discounts, and don't you have a sister by the way? We should totally hang out some day!'_

Was this a joke? Was Rio willing to make her pay for their skirmishes over the charity dinner by pulling a new insane trick out of his bag? Was he manipulating his girlfriend or was she only playing innocent but perfectly aware of his sneakiness?

All things considered, the healthy thing would probably have been to ask Rio for a meeting and sort this out. Like adults. So obviously she wouldn't do that. Not before she got a little fun, at least. Rio had pointlessly threatened her, accusing her of stalking Trisha. Fine. Let's reward the effort and do it, provide at least some consistency to the argument. Time to play detective all over town.

As it turned out, Trisha wasn't hard to track down and follow. A couple of stakeouts — even if she would never admit it in front of Annie, the latter was right, it _was_ a rather thrilling term — parked in front of St Andrews Hospital were enough to provide Beth with the young woman's address and daily habits. She followed her for a few days, discovering with unexpected relief that Rio and Trisha had not moved in together yet. She did witness a few of their date nights, though, angrily looking for any clue screaming that they were plotting against her. But she couldn't find anything suspicious in their demeanor. Rio had royally ignored her over their last cash drop, a couple of days after his threatening warning, and except for the incident with Scott and a few texts suggesting that they should hang out after their meet at the grocery store, Beth hadn't heard from Trisha as well.

The questioning was itchy, though. She had to find out, and maybe this was also her revenge for Rio's unfair accusation. Eventually she replied to one of Trisha's messages, and offered to meet for coffee. She'd rather deal with Trisha in the first place, unwilling to endure Rio's harsh tone and despising accusations. It made her angry, and anger wasn't good for her.

"So, I've heard that it's raining sheer coincidences all over town these days," Beth immediately attacked as soon as Trisha started stirring her latte.

The latter raised her perfectly shaped eyebrows at her, and Beth surprised herself into _admiring_ the soft lines of the young woman's face. From this close angle, Trisha was even more beautiful than Beth remembered, and that thought was rather disturbing. Like, why had Rio even bothered to _look_ at her if he could have, well, _that_? And for once this last thought from Beth wasn't some shameless lament fueled with self-deprecation, it didn't actually _upset_ her, but it was just... practical awareness of the league she was playing in as a suburban mother of four, a rational lucidity which didn't make any sense in the end. Because Rio _had_ looked at her, repeatedly, and not in a needy, starving way suggesting that times were rough in _that_ field.

Trisha's voice awoke Beth from her self-involved mystery-solving obsessive loop, "I'm sorry I'm not sure to follow you, here."

The young woman was attentively peering at her and Beth squinted. Was she doing this on purpose?

"Speaking of which, did you... Did you _follow_ me to that grocery store?" she asked, although she already knew the answer.

"Hum... Maybe?"

Beth scoffed, incredulous, at Trisha's tiny apologetic yet shockingly unashamed wince. God, who was this woman?

"To be honest I'm even surprised that you didn't call me earlier," Trisha added with an saddened smile, "But I didn't intend it to sound like some creepy stalking."

Beth rolled her eyes.

"No? What was it, then?" she asked with incredulous irony.

She didn't know what to expect. Rio sending Trisha to spy on Beth before scolding her about it didn't make any sense at all. Unless the two of them had a very specific conception of couple entertainment. At this point, the situation was already out of control and normal understanding. Trisha's eventual answer took her off-guard, though.

"You don't work for superstores," she said, and it wasn't a question.

Beth calmly stared at Trisha, her voice steady yet honeyed with that kind of sugary quiet which could only be followed by storm and fury, "And why is that, exactly?"

Trisha didn't let Beth intimidate her though. Of course she wouldn't.

"Because I know that Rio does not," she started, "But I believe him when he says that you guys work together. He's so... compartmentalizing everything, I don't know much about what he does. But I wish I did. I mean, I'm facing a wall every time I ask, and it... it hurts. I'd like to take this relationship to the next level but it feels like he's pushing me away whenever I try to come closer, and since you know him from a different perspective, I figured..." her voice broke and she immediately pulled herself together with a mumble, "I'm sorry, I must sound insane."

"Oh."

Beth shook her head, speechless. All this time she'd thought that Rio was behind such shenanigans, playing another one of his cryptic and frankly annoying games. But she'd never guessed that Trisha would be the one to come up with this on her own. Well that was at least something. Rio did have a type in women after all. The sneaky, slightly obsessive and unsecure kind — although she would never admit in front of anyone and especially Rio that these were aspects of her personality — but still. Beth had not expected that, but for once, Trisha was sharing something... _relatable_. On so many levels. Beth had stood on that side of the fence with Rio too. And it had driven her crazy, not knowing about his life, about him. To the point of stalking him too. _That_ state of mind, she could understand.

But Trisha's innocent anxiety reminded Beth of Scott too. He didn't look unhappy, but maybe he was feeling the same way Trisha did, sensing her lies and the way she mercilessly pushed him away from a crime talk they'd probably never have. Although... Nah, he most likely wasn't. She was a better liar. She blinked several times, refusing to acknowledge the obvious and quite hideous conclusion hanging in front of her.

"I'm really sorry if you got the wrong impression. I just wanted to get to know one of his friends!" Trisha added as if such lame explanation could provide acceptable justification for what she'd done.

Beth pulled on a gentle, comforting smile, "Oh, we're not friends. And I don't know him so well, to be honest, I'm not sure that I could even tell you precisely what his job consists of."

It wasn't that she wanted to spare Rio, or abide by some romantic idea of loyalty to him. Definitely not. But the merely practical consideration of her own troubles if she let Trisha know about Rio's lane of work was enough of an incentive for her to give in to an effortless lie. But that was underestimating the woman in front of her. Trisha gave her a warning glance.

"Maybe I didn't make myself clear enough. Beth, I might be ignorant of Rio's whereabouts, but I am not stupid, nor blind. He's not acting the same around you. I noticed. He's, like... tense. The two of you share more than an office entrance or whatever."

Beth dreamily considered for one second the option of telling Trisha that getting shot three times in the chest generally tended to bring some tensions to an already unhealthy work-ish relationship. But despite the promising perspective of the girl's reaction, that would probably be her dumbest move ever.

"Wait a minute," Beth suddenly frowned, "So you knew that Rio was lying to you about work? For a whole year? How did you even...?"

Trisha performed a perfect sigh, the annoying kind that managed to be sexy and sad at the same time and raised comforting feelings inside of everyone. The kind Beth would have never thought Rio would fall for.

"I only suspected it," Trisha eventually explained with something in her eyes clearly suggesting that Beth wasn't as smart as she'd initially thought, "I knew for sure when you guys talked about that secret shopping thing over dinner. But I guess that deep down I always knew he was lying, I just... didn't want to admit it to myself."

What was that term she'd gone with earlier, again? Oh yeah. Relatable. No, it was more than that. This time is felt more like twenty years punching Beth's face all at once, along with the memory of her total absence of surprise when she'd seen that flossy thong hanging in front of her.

"Oh I totally get that," Beth whispered, out of breath for an instant.

Trisha misinterpreted Beth's troubled reaction, "Do you guys have... history? Is this what this is about? I mean it's okay if you have, I understand, we all have a past!"

An unwelcome and sudden flash of Rio frantically yanking her panties down in a bar bathroom, his heat in her back and his fingers curled around her nipple clouded Beth's mind for an instant. She exhaled, uncomfortable with the resulting familiar burning around her cheekbones. Maybe this was her best way out, all things considered, diverting Trisha's attention from the treachery and rather muddy waters of Rio's professional career. She forced an embarrassed smile on her lips, raising her hands in a powerless gesture.

"You got me, I'm afraid. We... had an affair, a long time ago. It was just a one-time thing, two times actually, but you know how it can be... Things have been kind of awkward ever since," she scoffed, before she precipitately added, "But it's definitely over. I mean, not that it has ever meant anything in the first place."

Trisha nodded in a weird fashion, as if relieved yet pissed-off to watch her assumptions turn to certainties.

"Was he... secretive with you too?" she hesitantly asked.

Beth's eyes widened. Was this for real? Was she seriously supposed to answer that and bond with that woman over generalities about a man they both had slept with? This felt even weirder than the day she'd had to open Mary-Pat's eyes on the real kind of man Boomer was, and _that_ had definitely been a weird one.

"Ooooh, you have no idea," she replied, her smile filled with connivance in a vague attempt to label the topic as something like _I totally get you but I seriously don't want to discuss it_.

Needless to say that such strategy royally failed. As it had just turned out, Scott and Trisha had one thing in common besides dating deceptive liars: they were both really eager to question topics Beth didn't want to talk about. When had she become such a Rio instruction manual dispenser? And what was considered as commonly admitted policy regarding the boundaries of this very specific type of talk? Beth wasn't very much experienced in that field, she'd never interacted with someone dating one of her exes, for lack of a better word describing the kind of non-relationship she'd had with Rio. She didn't have exes except Dean, to begin with, and the time she'd handed Amber an envelope full of cash didn't count. So.

This was literal torture. A kind of talk she was already uncomfortable to have with the girls, turning into a nightmare facing the basically stranger Trisha was. And the latter wanted to know _everything_. Seriously, what was wrong with her? Beth quickly quenched the young woman's curiosity though, invoking the absolute, and frankly quite accurate for once, lack of communication between her and Rio, insisting on the accidental dimension of their encounters, fiercely keeping all the details for herself, until the conversation died from natural causes, running out of juicy fuel.

Beth's mood had not improved by the time she made it home. As much as she understood Trisha's intention, she was highly displeased with the implications of the whole thing. Starting with an unavoidable talk with Rio. Him learning about their encounter from Trisha was a risk she couldn't be less eager to take. And good thing that they had a cash drop scheduled on the very next evening, because she didn't feel like _asking_ for a backyard talk either.

As usual, Rio was practically ghosting her, casually chatting with Demon without even a glance at her when she handed him the bag full of cash.

"Hey," she firmly started, "May I have a word?"

He took his time to finish his chit-chat with Demon, exaggeratingly showing-off how little she mattered in the list of his priorities. Eventually he slowly rolled his eyes at her, his expression cold and annoyed as he sucked in his bottom lip. Beth's eyes lingered maybe an instant too long on his mouth, taking in his swollen lip as he let it go to answer her.

"Whassup?" he let out, cocking one eyebrow.

She shook her head, angrily dissipating her beginning of a blush at his provocation.

"I think you owe me an apology."

He frowned, letting out an angry snap, "What the fuck? You high or summin'?"

She didn't lower her eyes. For once he was looking at her, and despite his intimidation attempt she felt entitled to snap back. Boundaries had been crossed.

"That's hilarious," she coldly replied, defiantly staring at him, "Trisha's been tracking me down. And she's stalked Scott too. I just thought you'd like to know."

He gave her a long, disbelieving glance before he averted his gaze for a while. She didn't need to reproachfully elaborate, he couldn't ignore the meaning of that. He'd made a mistake accusing her. There was a silence before his eyes eventually came back at her.

"Alright. Why should I believe you?"

Eyes bulging in frustration, she shook her head. Screw him. She had not intended to provide more than a heads-up about who stalked who, but his manly arrogance was... gross.

"You know what? Fuck you, you and your stupid assumptions!" she sharply replied, "Believe whatever you want, I don't care. But she's been following me because she feels like you're hiding stuff from her. She wanted to know more. About work."

For the first time, he seemed surprised. Caught off-guard. Beth pushed her upper-hand further.

"She also asked if we had history."

"Whatchu said?" he immediately asked, and although he'd kept a chilling attitude, his tense shoulders were screaming that she had his attention.

"I told her the truth. I said that it was just a one time thing which never meant anything. It's long-forgotten history," she dreamily said, her voice dipped with honey.

He stepped into her space, slowly, until he was close enough for her to feel his cool breath against her mouth and the heat emanating from his chest, sense its raise and fall barely inches away from her breasts.

"Yeah?" he drawled, bringing his face even closer.

Beth's eyes dropped down to his mouth again, lingering on the moisture on his lips, with an odd urge to mercilessly bite and kiss him. She could barely breathe anymore, overwhelmed with the way he seemed to wholly surround her, images from dreams and memories popping in her mind. She stared back at him, the flash of irony in his eyes telling her that he hadn't missed a second of her erratic-breathing involuntary show. But she didn't give in to her desire to walk down the slippery path of striking back with the same unfair arms. It wasn't effortlessly that she stepped back and shook her head, pulling on a neutral face.

"Just like you said, it was only for work purposes," she softly replied.

His self-satisfied smirk slowly vanished and his jaw ticked as he lowered his gaze, "Surely was indeed."

She didn't even shiver from the gut punch. Cocking one eyebrow, she threw her next strike in an effortless lie, "To be fair, I barely even remember anything."

He met her gaze, gauging her and taking in her genuine grin, and she couldn't enjoy more the frustrated annoyance in his eyes. And honestly, she was quite proud of herself on this one. Just like when he'd thought he had the upper hand, overwhelming her with physical proximity, she hadn't even blinked while playing her trump card. And it felt so good, getting to see in his eyes the reflection of her own hurt back then. She should have done this much sooner.

"Yeah, me neither," he drawled, attempting to keep his standards up but really sounding like he'd fallen deep in an ocean of bitterness.

There was a silence, awkwardly punctuated by Demon's discreet cough in Rio's back, and oh right. He was still there.

"Anyway, you should talk to her. She really cares about you and she's unhappy with the way things are," Beth spoke again softly, realizing that she felt genuinely sorry for Trisha, before she pulled on a severe face, "And please tell her to stop bothering me and my family, or I'll have to charge you for counseling!"

She didn't wait for his answer as she turned her back at him and strode to her car, enjoying the sweet taste of triumph.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've just realized that so far this story does not pass the Bechdel test like at all. But does rule number 3 apply when women talk about Rio??? 😂😂
> 
> Chapter title borrowed from ABBA, by the way.


	5. Hard To Say I'm Sorry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for a second fire alarm... 🙈🙈

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before we start, let's just take a collective minute to yell in the abyss after 3.02 last scene, shall we?
> 
> 😱😱😱
> 
> Aaah, that felt good!
> 
> I really want to thank you all for the amazing support you gave me with the previous chapter. I was utterly worried that this story had lost its interest, and I wasn't sure I could keep writing while S3 is airing. But as always you guys really got me back on tracks with your kind encouragements, I love you so much!!!
> 
> ❤️❤️❤️

Beth was angry. Tonight was supposed to be her night out with Scott, trying that new Italian place. And okay, she still could make it on time. But wasn't it irritating that even unaware of her private life, Rio would always ruin it? Unless he _was_ aware of it, deliberately rescheduling her cash drop an hour later. Hopefully, she'd even have time for a quick shower if the gods of traffic were with her, but still. Ever since the most recent developments, she hadn't heard about Trisha. But Rio had been extra mean to her, trading his cold indifference for something more... intended. Scathing. And to be honest she'd had her moments of glory too. Not to brag, but she knew where to aim. That was probably the only good things about frienemies, she pensively acknowledged as she parked her car. Knowing them well enough to be able to hit hard.

She angrily extracted the duffel bag from her trunk, walking past Demon on her way to the warehouse. He was lighting a cigarette outside, and he briefly nodded at her but she wasn't in the mood for cheerful greetings. The warehouse was empty except for Rio, casually sitting on a rusty metallic table — God, did he at least know what _chairs_ were for? — and a random couple of his usual boys standing in the back. She didn't even try to make an effort at being nice, basically throwing the duffel bag in Rio's direction. The bag heavily landed on the floor and Rio smirked, smoothly jumping down the table to take a step forward and pick it up.

Something changed in his expression halfway there, though, and before she knew it he had closed the distance between them and was firmly pushing her aside, with enough strength to send her on the ground a few steps away. She lost her balance with an angry protesting scream before the impact violently emptied her lungs. She didn't... _register_ it at first, that sound which reminded her of a muffled fire cracker. And it took her a few heartbeats and several blinks to understand what it meant, the sight of Rio lying on the floor with his two boys — that term sounded quite ironic now — pointing guns at him.

 _They are going to kill me._ Obviously this attack had been carefully planned. They had waited for Demon's break, managed to be alone with an unalarmed Rio, they wouldn't let someone as insignificant as her to get in their way. Because who was she fooling, her current status probably stood below minor sidekick level. She would be a casualty in Rio's murder. That was, mostly, what propelled her on her knees, crawling towards the shape of Rio wriggling in pain and shock on the ground.

"Elizabeth, don't!" he warned in a hiss as he saw her coming closer, but she didn't listen.

"Shut up!"

She chose to ignore the familiarity of the bleeding sight he offered, she didn't even try to make sure he was okay while her hands groped around his waist for his gun. It was still the same golden one, the weight feeling weirdly familiar in her hand. She armed the gun immediately, pointing it without any hesitation towards the two boys.

"Don't move!" she spat with all the cold authority she could find in herself, trying not to appear as begging for her life. And, to a lesser extent, Rio's.

The guy with the silencer, the one who had shot Rio let out a sneering laughter.

"Yeah, whatchu gonna do, huh? There are two of us, bitch!"

She swallowed, her eyes locked with his. As soon as she'd try to shoot one of them, she'd have a bullet sent straight in her head. She knew it, as clear as the day. And she didn't want to shoot a man. Not again. God, could these people ever stop their dramatic gun shows, give her a break? Was it too much to ask for?

She pulled the trigger in a loud detonation, barrel facing the ceiling, and the bullet hit a steel beam somewhere up their heads.

"What do you think? I could still do some damages, I shot people before," she replied, jerking her chin.

It didn't exactly _impress_ the gangbanger in front of her, didn't stop him from pointing his gun at her and cocking it.

"And we all know your rate of success," he told her with a sardonic smile, not realizing that her whole point was about buying herself the time she needed to send the alarm. 

Demon and Cisco couldn't have missed the sound of her shot, and they indeed suddenly barged in the warehouse, their own guns already out. At this point, Beth had completely forgotten about Rio lying on the floor beside her, her mind focused on fighting for her own life. Hence she startled with a little squeak when he took the gun from her hand and got back on his feet, faltering a little. At least he was alive. She slowly stood up with a deep exhale, surprised to feel relieved. His left arm was covered with blood but apart from that, he seemed okay. Not quite okay, actually. He almost collapsed on her an instant later, and she had to support him with one arm around his waist to prevent him from falling again. Demon and Cisco had already unarmed and tied the two other boys and they were pointing their guns at them, waiting for Rio's order.

"Alright, let's sort this shit thru—" Rio started with an unusually weak voice, but Beth cut him out of a bossy impulse.

"No, _you_ are not sorting anything. You're wounded and I'll take care of it. You two," — she nodded towards Demon and Cisco — "you _handle_ these guys and then you come get him at my house. Is that understood?"

Demon looked at Rio for confirmation and the latter gave him the tiniest nod.

"Usual procedure," he muttered before he let Beth guide him to her car, surprisingly without further protest.

She started the engine and drove as fast as she could, the adrenaline slowly flowing back, leaving her with nothing but pure terror. Rio hadn't said a word, his breath was loud, and she suddenly feared that she might not be of any help to him. She suddenly noticed the metallic smell of warm blood, overwhelming in the enclosed space of the car and kind of nauseating. God, what if he died in there? How could she ever recover from _that_ trauma?

"Are you bleeding a lot?" she asked, quite unable to hide the anxiety in her voice.

He didn't answer immediately, and she worried that he might have already passed out, but he eventually grunted something which sounded like, "I'm good."

Make him talk. Keep him conscious, she thought.

"What happened?" she asked.

He chuckled, his voice raspier than his usual, "Oh you didn't get it? So this boy shot me—"

"Oh my God, would you please stop? I mean why did they betray you? Who do they work for?" she asked, rolling her eyes.

Ugh, even on his deathbed he'd probably use his last strengths to annoy her. Which was kind of flattering somehow. But not the damned point. He shrugged, or at least he tried to, but quickly gave up with a painful groan.

"I'll find out soon," he hissed, murderous.

And this was... kind of terrifying. Made her wonder if he'd had that same deathly look on his face after... her. She didn't dare to reply, unsure that she craved digging in that explosive hole, and they both remained silent for the rest of the ride.

She guided him to the bedroom as soon as they arrived at her house, let him sit down on the bed while she rushed in the ensuite bathroom for a first aid kit. She caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the mirror, her clothes covered with dust and blood, and she quickly changed, grabbing the first dress she could find on the shelf and getting rid of her stained jeans and blouse.

Rio raised his head at her when she came back. He looked paler than the usual, but there didn't seem to be anything able to remove his smug smile.

"You think I got a thing for nurses or summin'?" he teased, purposely annoying.

"I think you have a thing for women who are too interesting to be good," she cockily replied, proud to throw him back his own words.

And God, what was wrong with her? Something in her tone sounded almost... flirtatious.

"Still think you're special, huh?" he retorted, although his voice was a little bit choked, probably from the pain.

He raised daring eyes at her and she swallowed, cursing her own recklessness for taking that slippery road all over again. She cleared her throat, hiding her annoying trouble by being overly confident.

"Kind of," she coldly nodded, "Not to brag here, but I just saved your life. Now take off your shirt."

Surprise briefly flickered in his eyes at her bossy tone, but he quickly pulled himself together with a chuckle.

"Mhh... You realize that I had saved _your_ life a minute before, yeah?" he asked with raised eyebrows as his valid hand started unbuttoning his shirt from the top.

Right. There was _that_ too. The idea that he might have... _protected_ her, pushed her away from the danger he'd seen coming, that was something she really didn't want to think about.

"Well, this is not a contest!" she angrily pointed out with a dismissive wave of her head.

She hated the direction of this conversation, and she hated how even wounded and supposedly weak he managed to push her every worst button with expert skills.

"Oh see, but it is," he drawled.

With a feral grin he parted the sides of his now unbuttoned shirt and oh fuck. No. Not now. She stopped dead at the sight, sobering up from her anger at a supersonic speed. To be fairly honest, she didn't know what she'd expected to see. Not that she had expected to ever _see_ that, good Lord, she'd done everything to avoid it. But in that eventuality... Something clean, maybe. Three neat pink dots on his tanned skin as a non-traumatic reminder, perhaps a sexy version of a scar, just stating the facts. But she hadn't expected this ugly mess of interlacing ridges on his chest, the welts telling a very different truth. The surgery. The pain. The months stuck in bed. The re-education. The physical and psychological trauma she'd inflicted and never given more thoughts to once she'd seen him alive without any obvious aftereffect.

She nervously cleared her throat and he raised interrogative — and slightly triumphant — eyes at her.

"Well, that's a low one, but if you're trying to force me to say that I'm sorry for the decision I made, I... am not," she said in a low voice. "But I'm sorry for what it put you through," she added after a silence.

He grunted a blank acknowledgment and she deeply inhaled, trying to calm down before she helped him free his arm, entrapped in his shirt's sleeve. The wound was hideous to see, a mess of blood and flesh clearly not in the right place, and... Okay. Deep breaths wouldn't be enough to prevent her beginning of a nausea, she needed something stronger for this.

"I'll be right back," she managed to articulate before she precipitately left the room.

She wasted no time to fetch a bottle of bourbon and two glasses that she dropped on the nightstand, instantly gulping down one, then two generous servings before she found the courage to look at him again.

"Want some? For the pain?" she timidly offered.

He shook his head, "Nah, I'm good."

But he clearly wasn't, if the sweat on his forehead and the tension in his jaw were anything to go by. She let out an exasperated sigh, her eyes rolling up.

"Please, you don't have to pretend that it doesn't hurt just because you have a penis! I know it's painful. Here."

She handed him the glass and he took it with an annoyed pout clearly suggesting that he was the one doing her a favor here. Although she couldn't help but smirk when she noticed how quickly he downed it. She kneeled in front of him, taking a closer look at the damages, and at least her hands had stopped shaking by the time she started to clean the wound. It wasn't as bad as it had looked at first sight. The bullet had hit the external part of Rio's arm, entering and exiting without breaking any bone nor severing an important artery. Not that she knew anything about basic anatomy, though, but at least it didn't _look_ as serious as she'd initially thought. Hopefully the recovery would be quick and devoid of complications.

It took her a while to clean it all and remove the dust and tiny gravel that Rio's fall on the ground had stuck everywhere. He didn't emit a sound the whole time, but she felt the tension in his body. More than once, she caught him in her peripheral vision, pouring himself generous servings of bourbon, and sometimes handing her one that she would gratefully gulp down. She tried to alleviate the pressure of her finger over his damaged skin every time he did that, somehow having a hard time at enduring the obvious manifestation of his pain, but she couldn't _not_ touch him, right?

She wrapped several layers of gauze around his bicep when she got finished, sighing with relief and realizing she'd been tense the whole time too, unconsciously sharing the hurt and biting her bottom lip in painful focus.

"You should go to a hospital, though, or at least ask Trisha to take a look at it," she hoarsely whispered, exhausted, as she was finishing.

"Nuh huh. Ain't happenin'," he stubbornly replied, to her complete lack of surprise.

"Rio, I'm not a professional," she insisted.

He dismissively shrugged, "Well, you asked for this."

Her eyes widened, "You got shot and you were _bleeding!_ What else was I supposed to do?"

Leave him there to it? _Again?_

She kept her hands around his healed wound a few more seconds, her thumbs softly smoothing the surface of the dressing, and before she even realized what she was doing, her lips pressed a kiss over it. He almost startled, his face turning to her, eyebrows raised in an obvious expectation of an explanation. She hated to feel her cheeks burn under his confused yet incredulous gaze.

"Sorry, it's just a habit I took with the kids," she explained, embarrassed.

A mix of disbelief and disgust printed itself on his face, and he looked almost... offended, when he replied with a wince, "Did you just give me a magic healin' mama kiss or some shit?"

She rolled her eyes. Seriously, why did he have to make a big deal out of this? Would it kill him to say _Thank you_ instead, just for once?

"What do you think? What is it that you didn't get in _'It's a habit I took with the kids'?_ " she acidly retorted.

"Jeez, you chill out sometimes, ma?" he said with an irony probably designed to annoy her at an extensive level.

"Ha ha. Very funny," she angrily replied as she sat by his side on the bed and refilled her glass.

Honestly, she'd deserved that drink. The burning of the alcohol down her throat slightly improved her mood. She might have overreacted a bit, but what did he expect, she'd been shaken by all that had happened. She didn't have his practice of adrenaline rushes. She slightly shook her head at her own thoughts while finishing her glass, and she heard him pouring himself another drink too. They stayed still and silent for maybe half a minute before Rio's phone buzzed. He gave a quick glance at the screen before he locked his phone.

"Demon's here. I should go," he said, looking down.

"Yeah," she softly replied.

He didn't move though. He stayed still, contemplating some unknown thoughts and she took him in. Her head was spinning, mainly from her countless drinks of the night, but not only. The fear, the blood, the adrenalin, her certainty that he'd protected her even if he'd never admit it, his overwhelming proximity for the past half hour, her unspoken regrets... it all melded in her brain. He probably felt the weight of her eyes on him because he briefly glanced at her, with something in his gaze almost grateful and... impressed.

She completely lost it. She kissed him, out of the blue, simply leaning forward until their lips touched, oblivious of anything else but her dizziness. As if he could be the anchor who would ground her when the whole world was spinning around her. She expected nothing but rejection and scorn from him, but still, she couldn't help it. She'd danced long enough on the edge of the volcano, she had to fall at some point. It wasn't even a good kiss, and the angle was terrible, but she didn't care. She tasted the bourbon on his lips, reveled in the long-forgotten but yet achingly familiar feeling of his mouth against hers for a couple of seconds before something suddenly resumed working in her brain. Already looking for a random explanation to provide, she withdrew her head, panicked thoughts overflowing her mind at the realization of what she was doing. 

He didn't let her go. His throat let out a protesting noise and she felt his valid hand in her middle back, pressing her against him while he kissed her back with the bruising intensity of her dream. His other hand landed on her upper thigh, squeezing the flesh through her dress and she immediately grabbed his shoulders in response, letting out a little moan when their tongues met. Soon he pushed her down and her back hit the bed, his mouth still on hers, and she just stopped thinking, dragging him in her wake and guiding him on top of her.

And the thing was, a part of her knew with absolute certainty that this was terribly wrong. It wasn't supposed to happen, ever again. But somehow she'd also always known with equal certainty that things couldn't end any other way. Whatever they did, some irresistible — and frankly irritating — curse always pulled them back against each other, no matter what.

Things escalated remarkably quickly. He buried his face in her neck, his hands exploring her body, and she messily roamed the bare skin of his back, mapping lines and angles that were disturbingly familiar for two people who'd only fucked twice such a long time ago. His valid hand frantically worked on the top buttons of her dress and, oh. She suddenly realized. She'd picked _that_ dress, the burgundy one with white dots. She had grabbed it without even thinking in her panicked urgency, but now its associated history was devastatingly ironic.

But she just... she didn't want to let any unrelated thought distract her from this. They hadn't talked nor looked at each other ever since the moment they'd started to kiss. She'd kept her eyes firmly shut and his face hadn't left her skin, even for a second, both knowing that any eye-contact would break the spell. She didn't even dare to moan, only allowing herself loud and hoarse breaths which seemed to turn him on even faster.

He pulled the bottom of her dress up her hips and she unzipped his jeans, slipping her hand inside his briefs to stroke him and sucking in a moan at how hard he already was. There was a messy urgency in the way they were both endlessly pouncing on each other, probably fueled with the refusal of remembering a couple of details. Like the fact that they were both currently seeing other people, for instance. She frantically groped for a condom in her nightstand drawer at the sudden reminder. They should definitely not have sex right now, that was a fact. But since they were apparently going for it, well... If you do wrong, at least do it well. Be responsibly irresponsible. She wordlessly slipped the wrap in his hand and he squeezed her fingers in a silent acknowledgement.

He entered her with a desperate intensity and she couldn't repress a sharp cry at the feeling. The way he was moving inside of her, stretching her, it was driving her _insane_. Maybe what they were doing was wrong, and it clearly wasn't their best fuck by far, but yet it felt incredibly right, two pieces of a puzzle falling into places every time they touched. She was his, and he was hers, and that was it. Nothing else mattered.

They kept avoiding each other's eyes when he rolled off her barely a few minutes later, panting and zipping his pants back. Still in her afterglow, she cast a quick glance at him as he put his shirt back on, noticing that his wound had been bleeding again, which... wasn't actually a surprise considering the exercise, but still a potential worry. She didn't bother to show him the way out when he walked to the door. Right before he left he looked at her, though, and she stared back at him, sitting on the bed with her dress partly undone. An unexpected darkness shadowing his eyes, he looked like he was about to say something, but he eventually pursed his lips and left. Maybe if they didn't say anything they could still pretend that it had never happened.

She waited until she heard the entrance door closing and Demon's car leave the alley to walk to the bathroom in autopilot. She was undressing with the vague intention of taking a shower when her phone rang from the back pocket of her jeans which she'd left spread on the bathroom floor in her past hurry.

Ten missed calls from Scott. Fuck. She had completely forgotten about their night out. And he was calling again. She picked up.

"Hey, honey, I'm sorry," she started with her sweetest baby-doll voice, staring at herself in the bathroom mirror, "Annie got a bad food poisoning so I had to watch Ben, and then I ran out of battery to call you, and—"

"It's okay Beth, I get it," he cut her, his voice sounding slightly annoyed.

Which was... fair, after all he'd spent the whole evening waiting for her. But the lie had come out so easily from her, without even a blink nor a second thought, that he didn't seem to _question_ her explanation. She'd better remember to ask Annie to cover for her just in case, though.

"Are you mad?" she softly asked.

"No, no, I'm just... I wish you had called me."

This should have broken her heart, overwhelmed her with guilt and shame. But it just didn't.

"I understand and I'm really sorry. I'll make it up to you, I promise," she whispered.

"Okay. I guess I'll let you sleep then, it's late. Love you," he said.

"Love you," she dreamily replied after a silence.

He hung up and Beth stayed still, facing the mirror. The whole time, she hadn't taken her eyes off the marks that Rio had left on her skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from Chicago (the band, not the musical)


	6. Love Bites

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Guys, I did something..."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I borrowed this chapter title from Deff Leppard and I couldn't be more delighted by its potential double meaning!
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Beth woke up with a dry throat and the confused feeling that something serious had happened, although she didn't know what. For like half a second. And then she remembered.

"Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no..."

She got up like a spring brutally set free, obsessively whimpering while she tried to think straight. Had she _really_ slept with Rio last night? This could only be a dream, and a very bad one. It _had to_. Her eyes dropped on the bottle of bourbon and the two glasses still standing on the nightstand, and she shook her head. This didn't prove anything. Only that he'd been here. Even better, that _someone_ had been here. It didn't have to be him. She scanned the room for any leftover evidence of indecent stripping, obviously finding none.

She suddenly stopped dead in her quest for the truth. Wait. Whether she'd dreamed this or not, she remembered slipping a condom in his hand. She darted to the bathroom trashcan as if it were an oracle of some kind. Empty. She sighed, relieved, almost willing to laugh. How dumb she'd been, really, to think that it could all be real!

But then she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror when she stood up, and, well. Any other question? The hickeys were still there, obscenely unmistakable. And she just... not to enter a spiral of self-deprecation there, but she couldn't believe that she'd acted _that_ stupid.

Annie opened her door with a sonorous yawn, "Hi! What's so urgent that you couldn't tell me over the phone?"

Beth literally rushed inside her sister's apartment, heading straight to the kitchen, "Do you have any alcohol in here?"

"Easy, tiger, it's ten in the morning and I'm still in my pajamas!" Annie protested.

"You're wearing pajamas even in the afternoon," Beth replied, dismissing her sister's point.

With a satisfied groan, she found Annie's liquor cabinet or more accurately the cupboard she used to hide her booze in and she poured herself a glass of vodka that she immediately downed.

"Beth, what's going on?"

Beth deeply inhaled, trying to calm down the wind of panic growing inside of her, "If Scott asks you, I need you to tell him that you got food poisoning last night and that I had to come over here and watch Ben."

Annie looked at her as if she'd just climbed out an alien spaceship, "Why would he ask me that?"

"I don't know, he's a nice guy. He'll probably want to know if you feel better. Listen, it's just in case, okay?"

Beth hated the desperation leaking from her voice. There was a silence.

"Well, since I assume that you're not trying to make me cover for sudoku night, can I ask you what you did or is it, like, a no-questions-asked situation?" Annie eventually asked with hesitation.

That last option was a blessing. But Beth was in no state to keep it all to herself at the moment.

"I... I was with Rio."

Annie frowned, puzzled with this new information.

"What do you mean, _with_ Rio? Like a cash drop or something? Or another random tour of the city's best closets?"

Beth didn't answer. The expression on her face probably spoke for itself already. Powerless, she watched the dots suddenly connect in her sister's brain.

"Wait, wait wait... Did you...?" — Annie gasped in shock and covered her mouth with her hand as Beth silently nodded — "Oh my God, Beth!"

Beth's mouth twisted into a sad little grimace, "I know..."

"You have a _boyfriend!_ "

"I know..."

"What has gotten into you? Apart from what obviously got into—"

"Annie!" Beth reproachfully protested.

Perhaps misinterpreting her sister's vehemence, Annie crossed her arms over her chest and suddenly furrowed her eyebrows, "He didn't... force you, right?"

"What? No! He would never do that!" Beth rolled her eyes in shock at her sister's assumption.

Annie shrugged in a fashion clearly suggesting that Beth was overreacting, "Well, the guy's just proved himself a cheater, for all I know he might as well be a rapist!"

A what? The word slowly sank in the murky waters of Beth's mind until the ugly truth suddenly leaped at her throat.

"Oh my God, he's a cheater! And... so am I!"

Well, that was pretty shocking news. Beth hadn't considered things under that angle so far.

Annie raised an incredulous eyebrow, "Huh... duh! And on Scott? I mean, Beth, I didn't say anything when you were all about tumbling Gangfriend behind Dean's back, because... Ugh, Dean! But Scott is decent an you like him a lot, remember?"

"Hey don't be so judgey and everything with me, okay?" Beth protested, "Because you're not flawless either. Do I have to remind you that you slept with your ex while his wife was trying to get pregnant?"

Annie opened her arms, her expression turning into a living allegory of _Duh!_ as she exclaimed, "Exactly! Sis, you are talking to the Queen of bad decisions! So it is my duty, nay, my _mission_ to keep you away from that sucking track of mine. And let me tell you that right now, you went severely off the rail."

Beth couldn't find anything sharp to reply and they both kept silent for a while until Annie spoke again.

"Did you at least have a good time?" she asked in a low voice.

Beth bit her bottom lip, diving for the first time into the blurred memories of the night. It had been frantic, and messed up, and disappointingly clothed, and so, so wrong. But it couldn't erase the way she'd felt in Rio's arms.

"I... I don't know! It was a drunk, unplanned mistake, okay? And it won't happen again."

Annie chuckled, "Remember the last time I told you that I had made a drunk unplanned mistake?"

Beth rolled her eyes, "It's not the same! You were seventeen and having a _baby_! But okay... I see your point. Sort of."

"Are you going to tell Scott?"

Beth's eyes widened. God, what now? Wasn't the whole point of cheating _not_ to tell the official partner?

"Why?" she asked with confused incredulity.

"Oh, you know, trust, transparency, healthy relationship, just tossing a few basic concepts here..." Annie shrugged.

"Well, Scott thinks that Rio works for secret shopping department," Beth drily replied, "It's a long way before I tell him about _that_!"

Annie pursed her lips in consternation but she didn't say anything.

Beth felt utterly lost over the following days, standing in some kind of weird in-between where she _knew_ that she'd slept with Rio but still she refused to acknowledge the circumstances which had lead her to such inappropriate behavior. And it seemed like Rio had experienced the same type of denial. After an extensive search of the house, she eventually came to the conclusion that he'd taken the condom away with him, probably out of a paranoid refusal to leave any proof behind. 

And even if she giggled for at least ten minutes at the mental picture of Rio climbing in Demon's car holding a knotted used condom suspended between his fingers, the concept was still rather disturbing. But she decidedly pushed away any thought even remotely related to the concept of guilt, shame or remorse. These were already an acknowledgement of what had happened, which was precisely the part she was willing to avoid. She had better things to do for the moment, like patching things up with Scott.

She made it up to him for missing their night out, a couple of days later. They went out for dinner and cocktails, and she proved herself particularly eager to show him her affection once they got home, his place this time. And well, okay, maybe, just maybe, there was a tiny bit of guilt piercing underneath her apparent willingness. But it wasn't what fueled her the most. It couldn't be. She didn't want to think about Rio at all, anyway. This night was all about Scott, and only him.

"What's this mark on your neck?" Scott suddenly asked in the middle of their making-out session on his couch.

Fuck. Almost every one of Rio's love bites had already vanished at the time, except for the deepest one, right against her pulse. A spot he'd been sucking and biting at for a while as she'd come, and look at the result! There was still a reddish blotch on the pale skin of her neck which even makeup wouldn't camouflage. Internally cursing men's narcissistic obsession for leaving their mark on the women they had the stupidity to believe they possessed, she shook her head with a gentle smile.

"Bed bugs," she said, "Annie's place is infested."

Another thing she'd have to ask Annie to cover for, she mentally noted.

"Never mind," she added before Scott got any time to _think_ about it, placing both her hands on the sides of his head to kiss him passionately.

But the harm was already done by then. Scott's questioning had mined her head with the burning of Rio's mouth against her skin, and the memory settled in a corner of her mind, infusing her arousal with the remembrance of someone else. And she fell head first in the ambush, unable to tell in the following afterglow if she'd come under Scott's actual ministrations or Rio's imaginary ones.

But obviously, that had just been an accidental bump on the road. So she just... refused to dwell on such consideration. For a day or two, at least. Sure, there was this night when, after half a bottle of wine that she'd downed on her own — it just happened sometimes and it was only self-indulgence, _not_ alcoholism! — she allowed herself a little bit of daydreaming. Nightdreaming, to be accurate. She endlessly looped over small but meaningful details of her hookup with Rio, losing her breath at the memory of the things that their bodies had silently told each other. And maybe she was acting overly romantic here, elaborating over meaningless moves and giving this whole thing much more importance than it actually deserved, but. He couldn't _not_ have felt it too.

How he'd bitten her skin, sharp teeth sinking in her flesh while his fingers were pulling her hair in a harsh entanglement.

_I'm still mad at you_

The way her palms had cradled the back of his head and the nape of his neck with infinite softness in response.

_I know, and I'm sorry_

The gentleness with which he'd stroked her breast then, his valid hand making its way under the cups of her bra.

_Thank you for what you did tonight_

And obviously the desperate roll of her hips against him, mirroring the intensity of his kisses and the passionate tenderness of his tongue in her mouth.

_I miss you_

She would lose her mind over this if she kept going. She'd better stop. Although... of course, what she'd done with Rio was wrong, obviously, but there was no harm in _thinking_ about it, right? And, well, maybe touching herself a little over it was a bit more problematic, but again, it wasn't harmful, to anyone. And this slightly recreational fantasy time wouldn't last anyway. Within a few days, she'd have to see him again over a delivery, and he'd most surely be all about cold harsh mode, instantly drowning her horny enthusiasm. To be fair, the idea of having to meet his eyes over her next cash drop was enough to give her nausea. As comfortable as she was with the _memory_ of him, she didn't want to confront his real obnoxiously annoying self after _that_.

As it turned out, she'd been wrong to worry, though. As soon as she parked in front of the usual warehouse, she noticed that Rio's Cadillac was nowhere in sight. And Demon was apparently alone in there, hence she assumed that he was supposed to harvest her delivery. He grunted a vague greeting at her appearance before he absorbed himself in the content of the duffel bag, without demonstrating any sign of eagerness for conversation.

"How is his arm?" Beth tentatively asked.

Demon raised a neutral face at her, "Amputation went well," he grunted.

Beth startled, suddenly suffocating, "What?"

Not that the news wasn't already upsetting by itself, but it was actually kind of offensive too. Her bandage couldn't be _that_ bad.

The corners of the gangbanger's mouth raised in an almost imperceptible smirk at her shocked face, "Nah, just kiddin', he's fine. Good job, by the way."

The praise in his eyes was unmistakable and a familiar feeling of glowing pride put a bright smile on Beth's face, "Did he ask you to tell me that?"

Demon shook his head, looking almost offended, "I'm allowed to think by myself, ya know?" he teased.

She bit her lip, sheepish. She hadn't meant to belittle Demon, but somehow, the fact that Rio hadn't even bothered to send her a message through him was, well, _disappointing_. She suddenly wondered if Demon knew about their hook-up, and the uncertainty was itching but she'd rather have extracted all her teeth with a teaspoon than asked. She was still looking for a diplomatic and discreet way to find out when Demon zipped the duffel bag back with an approving nod.

He looked back at her with a strange expression on his face, as if he were wondering about why she was still there, before he added, "They worked for Ian. The boys. In case you wondered."

New worries pushed her internal dilemma aside and her eyes widened with fear.

"Do I have to expect to be followed again?"

Demon shrugged, "Dunno. But maybe you should be careful. Watch your back."

"Understood."

For an instant she was tempted to ask Demon to tell Rio that she'd said _Hi_ , but she rejected the idea, annoyed with her own eagerness to hear about him. Wasn't she ridiculous! Just because they'd had sex in the spur of a very bad idea didn't mean that she had to act like a fifteen-years-old whose crush had just looked at her over the cafeteria tables. Who was talking of crush, anyway? It wasn't like she nourished any kind of _feeling_ for him, good lord, no! She had Scott for that.

But speaking of the devil... things weren't exactly the same ever since the _incident_. She'd kinda counted on the fact that interacting with Rio again, as if nothing had happened, would contribute to erase her memory of the _thing_. Yeah, at this point she didn't even want to name it. But he hadn't showed up over their next meeting, and she didn't get to see him for a while after that, which left her with uncontrollable fantasies of her own. She fought those at first, forcefully pushing the thoughts away whenever they'd show up.

But then, there was this time when she was having sex with Scott, she could tell that he was close and so was she, but she was kind of... behind? Was that a thing? Anyway she'd had a rough couple of days, Danny's sudden grades drop at school was an all-consuming concern, and the weight of her everyday worries wouldn't let her go. Hence it was purely a matter of practical considerations when she decided that she could use some extra help to reach for the finish line. After all it was exactly like watching porn to get turned on faster. Just a little bit... less impersonal, perhaps. She closed her eyes, letting the flashes invade her mind, shivering at the sudden appearance of a tattooed wing in the very private screening room of her brain, gasping under the sensorial memory of _his_ tongue in her mouth and _his_ cock inside of her.

Saying that it boosted her arousal was clearly an understatement. As it would turn out later, Scott came out of this convinced that she had a very specific kink about her right breast. Which of course she _liked_ for it to receive some attention but not to the point of giving such response. She came within a few seconds, being extra careful with the name she let escape from her lips.

And, wow. That definitely didn't feel right at all. But it wasn't a big deal though, it wasn't like she was planning on using this trick again. Not often, at least. Except that... things got worse after that. The dreams came first, insidious, and leaving her frustrated and horny. And she didn't exactly _summon_ Rio's memory every time she and Scott had sex, but as weeks went by, she realized that she experienced much stronger orgasms whenever her scary sexy criminal boss popped into her mind at the right time. At first she used it like some kind of treat. A reward for when she had _deserved_ it, like the spicy version of a warm bath.

Until it became some sort of addiction. Until she would eventually convince herself that Rio was there every time Scott was touching her. Whatever he did, she just closed her eyes and pictured Rio's mouth against her lips, Rio's hands against her skin, Rio's weight on top of her. It felt way more better. And that side of her who just didn't see the actual harm in _thinking_ and delivered great speeches about her freedom to do whatever she wanted in the secret fortress of her mind, well... that voice gradually vanished, replaced by a scared and vaguely ashamed version of herself. To which point was she allowed to do _that_ without having to consider it as cheating? Was asking Scott to take her from behind so she'd avoid any visual distraction already the definition of too far gone?

And the thing was, she was quite novice at mental cheating. Oddly, she'd never really given in to her imagination during all those years with Dean, naively convinced that the mechanics were enough. Although maybe she should have, on second thoughts. It would probably have brought more fun to what was supposed to be the best half of her life. Whatever. The point was, she needed a second opinion. Maybe even some advice. And there were only two people in her life that she felt enough comfortable with to be able to ask without instantly combusting. And still, only after a large amount of bourbon and perhaps a few episodes of _Real housewives_.

"You know..." Beth suddenly started in the middle of a commercial break, comfortably coiled in an armchair, "when I told you about that _thing_... and I said I didn't want to think about it, but now I kind of think about it like... all the time... especially when... you know?"

Sitting side by side in the couch, Annie and Ruby stared at her with absolute confusion in their eyes and they both vigorously shook their heads.

"Any idea of what she's talking about?" Ruby asked Annie in a loud whisper.

"Nuh huh, not a clue," Annie frowned in response.

Beth shook her head. God, did she really have to make this _explicit?_

"Guys, I think about Rio every time Scott and I have sex!" she angrily explained.

"Hah!"

Annie let out a triumphant laughter and she victoriously turned her face to Ruby, "See?"

"Annie, not now," Ruby muttered.

But Annie pulled on a severe expression and she stretched an open hand to Ruby, palm facing the skies, "We said ten box."

With a grumpy groan, Ruby searched her purse while Beth watched the two of them with giant eyes, "Are you seriously placing bets on my sex life? Because I'm going to murder you for that!"

"It was her idea!" Ruby protested with indignation.

"No you won't, you need us to help you sort the mess that the aforementioned sex life is," Annie replied with uncontestable logic.

"And you know how to use four-syllables words! Good for you!" Ruby congratulated Annie with a mocking grin.

"What am I going to do?" Beth whined to no one in particular, staring right in front of her.

There was an astonished silence oddly punctuated by a young woman's voice raving about some yoghurt on TV, and it took Beth's expectant look at the girls for Annie to eventually open her mouth.

"You're... not seriously asking, right?" she said, hesitant, "I mean, it's obvious."

Beth looked at her sister with bulging eyes. Apparently, she wasn't the only one who sucked at being explicit. Maybe the bourbon was to blame at this point.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"She's saying that you should break up with Scott," Ruby intervened, quite annoyed with the Marks sisters' usual push and pull.

"But Scott is perfect! He ticks every box on the checklist!" Beth protested.

"Except the most important one, obviously," Annie replied with a wince.

"Which is?"

Annie let out an exasperated sigh, "That he's not the one that you want!"

"Wait a minute, I never said _that!_ " Beth shook her head, already panicking.

"Just asking a few questions here, don't think too much before answering... is it happening every time?" Annie asked, entering some sort of rapid fire mode.

"Pretty much."

"Is the sex better?"

"Well, I wouldn't think about it if—"

"Are you considering stopping it?"

Beth was about to answer when Ruby interrupted, "Hey, we don't need to know everything!"

"Well, I do!" Annie protested, but Ruby ignored her intervention.

"Annie's right, B. It's a fresh change to fantasize about someone else once in a while, but doing it all the time is not a kink anymore, it's being with the wrong guy."

"Like you've ever thought about someone else when you're with Stan!" Annie snorted.

"It's not the point," Ruby severely replied.

Beth sighed, slowly accepting the idea that once again, Rio had managed to ruin her attempt at moving on. The worst part being that it was probably unintended from him this time. _She_ had ruined it.

"I guess you're right," she whispered with defeat in her voice, "I have to break up with him."

The girls muttered comforting, "You're gonna be okay," and Ruby, sitting on the closest side of the couch, gently patted Beth's knee.

Annie's body suddenly stiffened, "Wait..." she started but Ruby threw her a warning glance.

"What?" Beth asked.

There was a silent exchange of knowing glances and bothered expressions between Annie and Ruby before they seemed to come to an agreement.

"It's just," Annie started, "Whatever you do, don't do it before Saturday. Just saying."

Beth blinked with confusion. Saturday? Why? Then she got it, and... oh no. A cold shiver of guilt ran through her body. 

"He's not..." she started with a pleading voice, "Is he?"

"Oh, he's totally throwing you a surprise birthday party," Ruby answered, definitively burying Beth's every hope of misunderstanding.

"And I already called dibs on the piñata, so you don't get to mess up with that!" Annie intervened with a vaguely threatening gesture of her hand.

"Wait, they do piñatas for grown-ups now? Is that a thing?" Ruby frowned.

"Oooh, you'd be surprised!" Annie said with a delighted expression.

Beth settled back in the armchair, wishing that she could disappear, swallowed by fluffy floral cushions. She hated birthdays. And this one, well... it was a promise for off the charts awkwardness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You are totally welcome to transpose Beth's sex behavior with Scott in this chapter to what happened in 3.03 as a coping mechanism... Personally the only way I have found to accept the existence of that scene (🔪🔪🤬🤬) so far is to assume that she was thinking about Rio the whole time...


	7. Nothing Breaks Like A Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fasten your seatbelts and get ready for the worst birthday party of all times...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I'm reaaaaaaally sorry for the wait. I had this chapter planned and half-written for _weeks_ , but season 3 is really playing with my feelings and plunging me in a dark, angsty mood that I have a hard time at extracting from to get back to the (kinda less and less) lighter tone of this story...
> 
> Beth and Rio are at their worst in this chapter, you can't tell that I didn't warn you!
> 
> Also, I know that Sadie is not the only character of the show who changed names this season, but I intend to stick to Demon throughout this story, for the sake of consistency, and also because it's so much better than Mick....

"Again. You're not supposed to know. So please act surprised and don't embarrass me," Ruby sighed, parking the car in Beth's house alley.

"I get it!"

Beth shook her head with annoyance. As if she couldn't keep a secret and _pretend_ things. As if having children wasn't already the best ecstatic surprise drama class of all times. 

She'd spent the morning with Ruby at the spa, officially because the latter got coupons for some relaxing time but in reality because this was the part of the play where she was kept away from home long enough for everyone to _decorate the house_. She'd slightly hiccupped at the expression. The idea of having strangers — okay, technically those weren't complete strangers, but still — making changes in _her_ house was enough to have her hyperventilating already. According to Ruby, Annie was supervising the whole thing so she wouldn't get too upset, which was already a reason for concern, Annie's sense of decoration never having matched Beth's. Besides, _upset_ wasn't supposed to be a language element when it came to attending her own birthday party, Beth had pointed out to Ruby.

She sighed, "Why did you encourage him in this, again?"

"Because he loves you. And we thought you loved him back," Ruby replied, slightly judgmental.

"Well, I do!" Beth protested, opening giant eyes, "It's not my fault if there was..." she paused in front of Ruby's disapproving pout, "Okay, it is totally my fault," she admitted.

She climbed out of the car and headed to the front door with Ruby by her side, and... okay, now she understood why they had sent her for a _relaxing_ activity before. She'd have had a stroke right away if she'd been in her usual mood. Seriously, _balloons_ hanging to the front door? What was she, four?

She had to endure about fifteen painful minutes of "Surprise!" and ecstatic greetings from the mini-crowd gathered in the house entrance and by the time she made it to the living room, she probably already had caused multiple fractures inside of Ruby's hand, which she'd been holding the whole time.

She stopped dead at the sight of the buffet. Oh God, there was _food_ too? Call her a control freak, but she was supposed to be the one baking for other people's events, not the other way around. And she didn't want to discuss whether this was weird or not, it was a sensitive spot, period. Anyway. Her mood slightly improved once she got a cup in her hand loaded with a cocktail Annie had made, which meant that it contained at least fifty percent of pure alcohol. Great. Exactly what she needed. She downed it instantly, immediately asking her sister for a refill.

"Wow, that's how you react to my decoration skills? Are you sure that you're not overdoing it?" Annie asked, a little pissed-off, stirring the bowl of margarita with a ladle before she refilled her sister's cup.

Beth pensively took a sip before she deeply breathed. Honestly, it wasn't _that_ bad, once she'd accepted the idea that the whole thing was happening. She had to admit that the decoration did match her taste and wasn't overwhelmingly flashy, which she guessed she owed Annie for, her sister having probably promised a painful death to anyone who would step too far on that sensitive path.

"It's not... I mean you _know_ what makes it weird," Beth bitterly replied, downing her drink again. "Give me another one," she asked, handing the empty cup.

"Hey, easy, you won't make it until the end otherwise!" Annie protested.

"Yeah... That's precisely the point," Beth muttered.

She hadn't seen Scott yet among the people who had greeted her entrance. She had to admit that his guest list was surprisingly pleasant so far. For a moment she had dreaded that he'd invite the whole parent teacher association — he really had an annoying thing for extended social circles, she was starting to realize — but only her closest acquaintances were there, that is, a dozen of PTA moms and dads she really got along with, including Scott's sister and her husband. And obviously, Annie, Ruby and Stan were there too.

According to what Ruby had told her in the car, the presence of everyone's children, including Beth's, had been extensively debated but eventually it had seemed easier to have them around, provided that Beth wouldn't have to solve any kid-related drama. Fortunately, Ben loved to babysit his younger cousins, and some of the PTA parents had volunteered to take turns to watch the kids too. This whole miniature crowd was currently spending its energy in the backyard, which hopefully meant that putting everyone to bed later would be easy.

Scott suddenly emerged by her side from nowhere, with Ruby in his wake. He fondly smiled and raised his cup at her as an informal toast, "Hey!"

She shyly smiled, "Hi."

He wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer to tenderly kiss her before he whispered in her ear, "Happy birthday, darling."

And suddenly it was too much. The last few days had been horrible, she'd been thinking about what she had to do every time she'd laid eyes on Scott, and now he was throwing this whole party for her, unaware of the storm of thoughts swirling in her mind. She couldn't take it anymore. It felt too wrong. The genuineness of his smile was food for her guilt. 

She clumsily extracted herself from his embrace, her cheek burning with anticipated shame. She cleared her throat.

"Listen, Scott, there is something I need to tell you..." she muttered, avoiding his gaze.

"Oh my God, this is worst than I thought. Don't tell me that she's doing this _now_ ," Annie whispered to Ruby in her back, loudly enough for Beth to be vaguely aware of it.

"She's _terrible_ at this," Ruby confirmed.

Fortunately, Scott was too much focused on Beth to pay attention to the girls plotting whispers. But Beth wasn't.

"What is it, honey?" he asked with a confident smile.

Beth opened her mouth but she didn't have the time to speak. Loudly clearing her throat, Annie had suddenly materialized by Scott's side, and grabbed his forearm to slightly pull him away from Beth.

"Hey Scott, just making a quick poll around here, what's your opinion on savory donuts? Heresy or delicious treat? Ruby says it's the new Hawaiian pizza..."

"Hey, I love Hawaiian pizza," Ruby protested, supporting Annie's move, "I meant it as a compliment!"

Some of the guests who'd just arrived took advantage of Annie's diversion to pay their respects to Beth and by the time she got rid of them, Scott was deep in conversation with Annie.

"By the way, did you call that guy I recommended you for disinsectization?" she heard him ask her, and she slightly winced at the thought that this bedbugs cover she'd asked for — among other things, to be truly honest — must have been really humiliating for her sister.

Annie gave him an exaggerated grin, "Oh believe me, it's all taken care of."

Scott's sister suddenly came to ask him something about the napkin supplies, and Annie and Ruby immediately took that opportunity to drag Beth to the backyard.

"What is wrong with you?" Annie exploded in a low voice, not that Beth thought that it was something possible for her, "When I told you don't break up with him before Saturday, I didn't mean for you to do it _on_ Saturday!"

"Well, guess what, I don't know how to break up with someone, okay?" Beth bitterly retorted. "I never had to."

"You never _had to_? Like, seriously, that's your problem? And what comes next? Your skin is so perfect that you can't find a moisturizer that's good enough? You're so funny that people laugh _too much_ at your jokes?"

"Annie, stop it!" Ruby intervened, "Never breaking up means that you're the one who ends up left." she pointed out.

"Or that the only way I know to end a relationship involves either a sledgehammer or a gun!" Beth retorted.

There was a stunned pause.

"Well, that's... kind of brutal," Annie muttered under her breath.

"I know, right?" Beth nodded with a wince.

"Just be honest, B. Tell him how you feel," Ruby said, putting a comforting hand on Beth's shoulder. "But just... not today."

Beth pensively looked at the children romping around on the lawn with water guns.

"You're right. It's just... really hard. I mean he has no idea! And seeing him happy like this, I..."

"I know..."

Beth let herself crash against her friend's chest for a comforting hug, and she didn't need to look at Ruby's face to know that she was silently articulating to Annie to go get her a drink, or comfort food, or whatever.

Annie did came back an instant later with a margarita and a plate of wings that the three of them shared, and Beth felt slightly better after that. She was even starting to actually enjoy the party, forgetting her tormented thoughts and just focusing on the present. But of course she couldn't catch a break, could she? She'd just started to relax when she suddenly clocked a tall thin silhouette among the guests. Could it possibly be...

"Trisha!" Beth greeted with her most seducing fake smile a few minutes later, hardly repressing an additional, _'What the fuck are you doing at my birthday party?'_

Trisha smiled and gave her a friendly hug to which Beth fought her instinctive recoil really hard, "Hi! Happy Birthday!"

"Wow, its... good to see you! I mean I didn't expect—" Beth tried, pulling on every civilized strand she could find on the carpet of her manners.

"To see me here?" the brunette completed with a perky smile. "Don't worry, I totally get your confusion!" she added to Beth's already intense blush, "I helped Scott with some planning details and he invited me in return."

Scott?

"Do you guys... see each other?" Beth managed to articulate, on her way to apoplexy.

"Oh, it's just—"

Scott abruptly joined them out of nowhere, "Trisha! I'm so glad you came!" he exclaimed, giving the young woman a high-five.

Well, maybe it was a weird consolation prize but at least they were probably not sleeping together. Nobody highfived their mistress.

"Honey, did you know that Trisha organized a party for her boyfriend's birthday lately?" Scott asked Beth, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "She gave me all these amazing contacts, and she made the pecan pie. And the brownies too."

Beth's eyes narrowed but she kept a dangerously playful voice, "You mean the ones I gave you the recipe for?"

"They surely won't be as good as when you make 'em," Trisha purred with as much forced flattery.

Scott was probably talking about Marcus's birthday party, but Beth allowed herself a minute of self-indulgence while she imagined Trisha throwing the same kind of event for Rio and the way the latter would have reacted to the balloons, which suddenly reminded her. Speaking of the devil...

"So I guess Rio couldn't make it?" Beth asked putting on a bright smile which wouldn't totally hide her intense relief, "I haven't seen him here... What a shame!"

"What a shame indeed, sweetheart! Wouldna missed it for nothin', you know me!"

Beth almost jumped at the sudden drawl in her back, and it took her several seconds to understand that Rio wasn't talking to her. He walked past her without a look as he came by Trisha's side, and Beth instantly made an important discovery about herself. She'd thought that she couldn't hate more Rio's theatrics. Well guess what, she'd just opened a new double-bottomed well of hate for his dramatic entrances. How interesting.

Snapping back from her impromptu moment of introspection, she noticed that he was holding an already half-eaten piece of chocolate brownies in his hand.

"Man, these are dope! That because of the love you put in 'em, darlin!"

Him and Trisha started a fascinating courtship ritual of some sort, rubbing their noses together and giggling before it ended all in a quite demonstrative kiss.

"Ugh, could someone hand me a paper bag? I think I'm going to be sick!" Beth mumbled for herself with annoyance.

She'd had doubts when he'd called Trisha _sweetheart_. Maybe Rio was the kind of man with a generic endearment for every woman he came around. But the brownies mention, while he _knew_ they were her recipe... That was purposely hurtful.

And he... Well, the last time she'd actually seen him, they'd just shared an orgasm, not a piece of cake. Seeing him again for the first time in weeks, in such an unexpected and personal context, confronting the fantasized object of endless sessions of arousal assistance, it felt weird, if not painful. Hence she straightened her spine and swallowed back her irritation, decided to not let anything escape her emotional fortress.

Which was already tricky. And having to do this while remembering what Scott and Trisha knew and didn't know about their degree of involvement was even trickier.

"Hi," she greeted, testing the water with a polite smile, "I haven't seen you at work for a while."

He finally rolled his eyes at her, as if he'd only just acknowledged her presence, as if she wasn't the very reason there was a party to begin with. Frankly, that was _rude_.

He shrugged, "Been busy."

His expression was neutral, his eyes cold, his whole demeanor expressing complete indifference to a point that made her want to scream. He was sucking a hickey in her neck the last time he'd seen her, for fuck's sake!

"Yeah, I could tell," she acidly retorted. Suddenly finding herself on a furious warpath, she gently pressed Scott's forearm, "Scott, honey, I'm hungry, could you bring me some of these brownies? I heard that they are delicious."

Deep down, she despised herself for this. Humiliating Trisha would not bring her the satisfaction she wanted. Rio was the one she needed to stomp on. Except that nothing she could throw at him right now would be Scott or Trisha-proof.

Scott came back with a plate of brownies and Beth thanked him with a casual peck on the lips. The kind she used to give Dean before and was more about intimacy than lust, the kind which came with years spent by each other's side. Counterattacking Rio and Trisha's lovebirds simpering on the lust field was probably an already lost battle, and she definitely didn't want to see it escalating.

"Mhhhh!" she exaggeratedly exclaimed once she got a bite of brownies in her mouth.

Actually, it was pretty well-executed for someone who didn't have her extensive knowledge of the recipe. But she wasn't in the mood for letting anything go.

"You know, I would never have thought about reducing the amount of butter and keeping them in the oven for five extra minutes! I mean, it's less moist of course, but it brings all this interesting... dryness," she said, proud of her passive-aggressive masterpiece.

Still masticating, she put on a whole show at emptying her cup in one gulp. It was all worth it, though. Trisha was collateral damages, but Rio's venomous look was really soothing. 

Surprisingly, it was Trisha who reacted first, "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Before Beth could answer, Trisha grabbed her arm and dragged her away from the ears of their respective boyfriends.

"Listen. I know that for some reason that I don't really understand, you don't like me. And believe me, I get that. But the only reason I'm here is because I need to talk to you. It's about Rio, and... you're the only person I know who, well, _knows_ him."

Oh no, not that crap again! Beth crossed her arms over her chest and slightly jerked her chin at Trisha.

"I'm not sure that I could be of any help here, but go on."

"A few weeks ago, he came home with a huge bandage around his arm. He didn't even let me look at it. He said it was nothing, just a stupid accident at work. So I want you to tell me what kind of work the two of you are into, because frankly, this is fucking scary."

The curse surprised Beth and she gave it a mental jolt. Trisha didn't look like a casually swearing kind of person. She must be really frustrated. But there was no way Beth could tell her the truth. Not that she worried that much about Rio's safety though, and even less did she care about being _loyal_ to him. But she would go down with him. Trisha was too much of a wildcard to be trustworthy on such sensitive matter. Especially regarding the fact that she and Scott were apparently hanging out now. It took her a split second to make a decision in front of Trisha's expectant gaze.

"Private investigation for insurance companies," she softly said.

"What?"

Beth convincingly raised her eyebrows, "Well, I'm not supposed to tell you this, so I would appreciate if you kept it for yourself. We are talking about a lot of money here!" she muttered.

"I don't understand..."

"Well, you know, some insurance contracts can amount millions of dollars, and our job is to make sure that both parties involved are doing their part of the deal. You'd be surprised with the cat and mouse games that happen sometimes! And the world of insurance companies is so brutal, it's a real turf war out there!"

Trisha blinked, obviously surprised, but apparently convinced.

"Although this is very confidential and we're not even supposed to tell our life partners," she said with a warning glance, "This is why Scott thinks that I do secret shopping. And you shouldn't tell Rio that I told you."

Trisha frowned, "Then, when he said that he got injured at work..."

A flash of what had happened in the warehouse popped in Beth's mind and she swallowed the lump growing in her throat at the memory.

"Like I said, I haven't seen him much lately, we're on different cases, so I don't know anything. But some customers he works with are kind of explosive, they have no boundaries if you see what I mean... Sometimes, I tell myself that the office floor number is the only difference between an insurance company and a street gang!" she added with a chuckle, mostly for her own entertainment.

"Thank you for telling me," Trisha deeply exhaled, with a timid smile. There was a sudden pause before she giggled, "You know, I was starting to think that he was doing something illegal!"

Because of course she had to make this hackneyed joke. Beth tried to force a laughter but Trisha abruptly switched the conversation topic in a way that reminded Beth very much of Rio's.

"There is something else," she slowly said, "He... hasn't been himself lately, and... I think he's cheating on me."

Trisha's eyes had suddenly turned watery, her face vulnerable, and... oh. Beth slightly faltered. Until now, she'd only considered her hook-up with Rio, questioned what it meant, or did not, from both of their perspectives. And a little bit from Scott's point of view too, because, let's face it, the girls hadn't left her a choice.

But Trisha had never meant more than an abstract concept for her. And seeing her, an anxious human being standing in front of her, well... suddenly Beth realized that she was the Other Woman. She was Amber. She was the countless whores she'd pictured in Dean's arms during the sleepless nights that had followed her discovery of his infidelity. And while she'd always pictured herself on the good and respectable side of the fence, the scorned one, she had surreptitiously slid on the other darker side, and she... wasn't sure that she was okay with it.

Not that any of the above was of Trisha's business, though. Feeling vaguely sorry for her, Beth pulled on a compassionate face.

"I'm really sorry to hear that," she gently said, and she didn't have to push it really far for her voice to break a little, "You know, my ex-husband used to cheat on me, and I know how powerless it can make you feel. But I don't have any clue about Rio's private life, though."

Trisha gave her a slightly insidious smile, "Oh, I know. This may sound ridiculous, but for an instant I believed that you were the one with whom... you know. So, I just wanted to see your reaction, and the way he'd react to you. And I owe you an apology, because I can see that it's _definitely_ not you!"

"Oh no?" Beth playfully asked, her arms crossed over her chest, a disbelieving smirk on her lips.

And she was _this close_ to throw it all to Trisha's face, although that would have been the dumbest thing ever. But there she was again, the sneaky ticking bomb that Rio was dating, and Beth was highly pissed off from being that easily discarded by this younger, thinner, prettier girl. Suddenly she wished she could have claimed Rio as hers in front of everyone and... seriously, what was wrong with her? Rio was obnoxious, and cruel, and sleeping with him had been a mistake. Period. Trisha could have him.

The young woman laughed at what she probably thought was a joke and Beth kindly smiled.

"Thank you for the baking tip, by the way. Next time I'll put them earlier out of the oven!" Trisha added.

She was a fair player, that Beth couldn't deny. She deviated the conversation over some baking related chit-chat for a while — Trisha was actually nice and funny when she wasn't forcing her to talk about Rio — when an oddly familiar sight in the street caught Beth's attention through the kitchen window. 

She rolled her eyes and bit her lips in annoyance. As if she didn't already have enough to handle. She couldn't believe it. There were _boundaries_. She propelled herself towards Rio's tall silhouette, reaching him within a couple of angry strides.

"Can I talk to you?" she asked, her nostril flaring with frustrated anger.

He made a whole show of slowly rolling his eyes at her, suggesting that she was interrupting whatever extremely important and interesting conversation he was having with Scott only to bother him with down-to-earth blabbering.

"I'm listenin'," he said, clearly not hiding the mockery.

She briefly closed her eyes, trying to calm down. Jesus. How could she have been stupid enough to fantasize about someone like him? To have almost _claimed_ him in front of his girlfriend?

"Not here," she eventually decided.

She grabbed his forearm, dragging him in her wake as she made her way through the small crowd gathered all around the house. And maybe, only maybe, a part of her was wishing that Trisha could see that. She was only looking for a quiet place, but as she roamed the house ground floor, she could only find one obvious answer. A sickeningly ironic one, though.

Rio raised a surprised eyebrow when she locked the bathroom door behind the two of them, and she glared at him. She spoke before neither of them got too triggered from the obvious reminder.

"Ian's boy is watching my house right now," she reproachfully whispered.

He casually shrugged, "I know. Why you think I'm here?"

That was... unexpected. He didn't bother to hide how much he enjoyed seeing her taken aback and speechless, and that was enough to snap her back to reality.

"Well, why don't you take care of it instead of chatting with my boyfriend, then?" she counter-attacked.

"Oh so now you know 'bout strategy and whatnot?" he chuckled, bringing an itch in her hand to meet with his stubble. And not in a good way.

He took one step closer slightly tilting his head until his nose was practically in her hair, and she let him. Although she was trembling with rage and frustration, she let him. And again, Trisha could go fuck herself.

"It's all under control, sweetheart," he muttered, the endearment too painful for her to process it in the moment.

Rio stepped back, spinning around to leave, and she bit her bottom lip in absolute disbelief. This didn't make any sense. She needed answers.

"Wait," she suddenly said, out of an impulse.

He froze and slowly turned back to face her.

"Why?" she whispered.

He frowned, "Huh?"

"Why are you doing this? Protecting me? Why did you save my life in the warehouse?"

He shrugged, "Cuz it's how business works."

She rolled her eyes with annoyance, "And cheating on your girlfriend, is that how business works too?"

There was a flash of angry shock in his eyes before he reflexively replied, "I ain't no cheater, Elizabeth!"

Her eyes widened. Was he for real?

"Yes you are!" she spat back.

"Well, you initiated it!"

"It doesn't make you less responsible!"

He chewed on his bottom lip, his face briefly reflecting inner conflict before the corner of his mouth raised in a cruel curve.

"So, you didn't tell him, huh?"

This was way worse than she expected. She'd hoped that they'd never mention what had happened, and although she was the one who'd eventually brought it up, she hadn't meant for them to _discuss_ it, God no! Especially not with this twisted light in his eyes. And what was he about, now, threats?

"So what, you have another Corvette you want to destroy?" she acidly retorted.

He shrugged, an amused smirk at the corner of his lips, "Not that I'm aware of."

"Why are you asking, then? Did you tell _her?_ "

Although she already knew the answer, she couldn't help to ask. To remind him that she wasn't the only one who lied. From the cruel smirk which blossomed on his lips, she knew that she'd made a mistake, although she didn't know which trap she'd just fallen into.

"Nah... What is there to tell anyway? I barely remember anythin'," he drawled, raising his eyebrows.

And the thing was, she couldn't disagree on the fact that it was a fair one. She got to know how it felt, being punched in the guts like this. She got to taste her own medicine and the truth was, it tasted awful. It made her feel sick with the pain, knowing that she'd ruined her relationship with Scott over a moment with Rio which he was spitting on. Knowing that she'd had every second of their terrible drunk hook-up haunting her mind like a brain tattoo for _weeks_ while he didn't give a fuck about it.

"Well, next time you're bleeding on the floor I'll just let you there! Don't count on me for having your back again," she angrily hissed, willing to send back poison for poison and looking for the most hurtful thing to say.

That one seemed to hit the spot, because his face lost its mocking cheerfulness to a threatening expression, and it was already too late when she understood why.

"Oh so tell me how it went for you the last time you tried that, yeah?" he threw back, his eyes narrowed and dark.

And he just... he had no _right_ to use that weapon. Just like the way he'd used the scars on his chest to prove a point, that was devastatingly unfair. The slapping sound resonated in the tiled room before she got the time to think it through. 

It took him a second to understand what had just happened, his palm rubbing his hurt cheek, but then the look he gave her was murderous. With a growl, he caught both her hands out of a reflex, violently shoving her against the wall and pining her wrists high above her head with a painful pressure. Her head hit the wall with a loud bang and for one second she wished she had really killed him when she'd gotten the opportunity to do so.

"Get off me!" she hissed, venomous.

He grinded even more against her as a provocative response.

"Never. Do. That. Again," he threatened, his face so close that she could barely distinguish him anymore.

He maintained his grip for a few more seconds before he suddenly let her go, stepping back and pulling on a neutral, cold expression on his face. She caught her breath, still in shock from the sudden upsurge of violence between them and the contrast it offered with what had happened the last time they'd been sharing the same space. In the same house.

She suddenly felt like a fool, humiliated for the weeks she'd spent thinking about him, about what they'd done. Obviously it had all been in her head even if she'd lured herself in the belief that it was not, inventing meaning to moves that clearly weren't anything more than primal lust fueled with hate.

She tentatively took two steps forward, being the one invading the other's space for a change, just to make sure. The corners of his mouth twisted with barely concealed disgust and she shook her head in astonishment.

"Wow. You must really hate me," she realized.

They silently stared at each other for a while.

"Happy birthday, Elizabeth," he eventually coldly muttered, avoiding her gaze as he unlocked the door and left.

She deeply exhaled, allowing herself a moment to regain her composure before she left the bathroom too.

"Hey, have you seen Rio?" she asked Annie a few minutes later as she ran into her in the living room.

"Hmm, I think that he and Trisha just left. Why?"

"Oh, nothing," Beth lightly replied, shaking her curls dismissively.

And after a quick glance outside, the threatening surveillance car was gone too.

She was on her way back to the living room when she saw it. The white envelope with her name scribbled in the middle just like only him could have written it, on top of the pile of wrapped gifts waiting on the coffee table for a solemn unwrapping session. Whatever it contained, she would not publicly open it. Ignoring Annie's protestation about her not being supposed to touch any of the gifts before due time, she grabbed it and well, she couldn't exactly keep it sealed now that she was holding whatever poisonous arrow Rio had left for her. Unless he got her a real gift, but that would have been quite unexpected.

She realized with annoyance that her hands were shaky, and she gasped when she finally peered at the envelope content. A pearl necklace she hadn't seen for the past two years. The gangbanger version of a letter of dismissal, probably. Her heart skipped a beat at the thought. Suddenly her vision went dark and tinnitus filled her ears until Annie repeatedly snapped her fingers in front of her.

"Beth. Beth! Are you okay?"

Beth startled, her eyes fluttering, "Yeah, yeah... I guess I had a bit too much to drink..."

"Well, I can't say that I didn't warn you," Annie scowled her, "What's in that envelope? Wait, isn't that Rio's handwriting? He got you something? I mean it's either him or some three-years-old really likes you..."

"Oh no, he's just returning something I forgot on the last drop," Beth replied, immediately folding the whole thing and tucking it into her pocket.

She tried really hard to enjoy the rest of the party, but something was undoubtedly missing. She wasn't really in the mood anymore. Still there were a few highlights, like that moment when all the kids, plus Annie, were fighting around a piñata, the latter seeming to enjoy herself even more than the children around her.

Then Beth went through the gifts unwrapping session with a brave smile, the pearls burning a hole in her pocket, and it wasn't before a couple of hours later, while the girls were cleaning the house for her — another promise they'd made about the party, as it had turned out — that she could take the necklace out and try to interpret... whatever it meant.

Eventually she shook her head, trying to stop looping about it, and she stepped into the backyard to enjoy the last minutes of sunshine in the late afternoon. She didn't startle when Scott wrapped his arms around her from behind, his lips pressing a kiss on her spine. She leaned into his comforting embrace, gently whimpering and giggling to the tickle of his lips in her neck. With one last _'Happy birthday'_ he eventually let her go and spun her around to face her.

"What was it that you wanted to tell me earlier?" he asked.

Right. At some point, in a moment that felt ages ago, she'd tried to break up with him.

She shook her head, pulling on a soft smile despite the tears that were burning her eyelids, "Nothing. Just... thank you for this amazing birthday party. But maybe let's do something more... simple, next time."

"Oh, okay," he said, a bit surprised, "Is that all?"

She frowned, suddenly afraid that Rio, or Annie, or anyone, may have said something they shouldn't, "Yeah... Why?"

He wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer to kiss her on the lips, "Because I've got something important to tell you too. To _ask_ you."

"Okay?"

She blinked, sending a silent prayer to any kind of supernatural entity for Scott _not_ to do something embarrassing. The getting down on one knee kind of embarrassing.

"Honey, we've been dating for more than a year now, and I love you so much. So I've been thinking..."

Beth was trembling. Maybe if she fainted right now she could at least buy herself some more time not to hear what he had to say?

"And?" she asked with a shaky voice.

"Maybe we should move in together. It doesn't have to be one of our homes, we can look for a place of our own. Or I can move in here if you think that it's better for your kids. It's completely up to you. I just wanted you to know that whatever you want, I'm in. What do you say?"

She almost burst in tears from the relief. Not that moving in together was a lesser commitment, but she wouldn't have survived the embarrassment of a proposal. And even if the girls had made it pretty clear that she should break up with him, was it really what she wanted?

Her eyes dropped on the necklace that was still clutched in her hand, her fingers rubbing each pearl after another like a rosary. The bile rose in her throat at the thought of her argument with Rio. There was nothing to hope for with him anymore. Not that it ever had, though. But if she ever had, like, secret _dreams_... well, now it was gone. For good. The simple thought of fantasizing about him again made her sick. Maybe this was her chance to finally move on. She deeply inhaled, meeting Scott's eyes with a soft smile.

"Yeah," she whispered, "Let's do that."

His eyes sparkled with joy as he leaned forward to kiss her, and at this very moment she heard the distant clatter of a glass splintering on the floor somewhere inside the house, followed by Annie's loud curse. Who would have guessed that a heart makes a sound when it breaks?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So how are we feeling right now? I promise I'll try to update quicker this time...
> 
> Chapter title from Mark Ronson ft. Miley Cyrus


	8. It's A Heartache

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Repeat after me. 
> 
> Everything is fine. 
> 
> Everything is fine. 
> 
> Everything is fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy! I'm so sorry it took me so long to come back with an update, never mark my word when I say that the next chapter will come soon!!
> 
> A million thanks and kudos to [ s_t_c_s](https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_t_c_s/pseuds/s_t_c_s) who beta-ed this chapter for me. Your help, advice and support mean the world to me, thank you. ❤️

"When I said don't break up with your boyfriend at the birthday party that _he_ organized for you, I never meant that you should move in with him instead!"

Annie's loud voice punched its way through the clouded walls of Beth's hungover brain. Crap. She'd completely forgotten that her sister was supposed to come over and pick up a few things she'd left at her house after the party. She moaned in protest but Annie ignored her sister's complaint and kept going with her rambling.

"Wait, is that how you ended up marrying Dean? Were you actually trying to break up with him? Oh my God, that would explain so much!"

Beth sighed, already exhausted.

"Just give me some more water."

"Beth! What happened?" Annie insisted, handing her the bottle.

Beth straightened on the couch where she'd been lying since early morning like a miserably stranded barnacle, and she took her time to down two full glasses of water before she dignified her sister's question with an answer.

"I... I panicked, okay? And then I realized that... maybe this is the right direction for me, you know?"

"Such a right direction that you had to drink it _in_ your system!" Annie replied.

"Please. You know that Scott is not the reason I drank too much yesterday!" Beth joylessly scoffed.

"Speaking of the devil, what happened with —"

"I'm going to take a shower," Beth abruptly cut her, wriggling her way out of the mountain of blankets she'd piled on top of her groaning self.

She'd spent the night alone. After everyone but Scott had left the party, she'd invoked drunkenness and exhaustion as an excuse, promising to meet with him on the next day, when her head would be clearer. Then she'd nursed a few more bourbons on her own, drowning in the numb oblivion of liquor the last crumbs of hurt. She'd buried her pearls deep into a drawer of old pregnancy clothes, making sure that nobody, including herself, would ever run into them, even by accident.

And then she'd meditated over the night's events with growing irritation, until she'd come to the conclusion that it was all for the best. Rio himself had slung the axe to the last strings that loosely tied her to him. Now she was free to move on. Which meant, in this particular case, move in. With Scott. And honestly, if she gave it proper thoughts, that perspective was rather enthralling. She'd gone to bed, a long-forgotten serenity filling her heart, quickly followed by the hangover of a lifetime in the early morning. Which explained why Annie had found a moaning and grunting mess in lieu of her sister several hours later.

Well, at least Annie's roasting inquiries had injected enough energy in Beth to make her _get up_. She was feeling slightly more human and less barnacle when she left the bathroom and came back in the living room where Annie was still chilling as if she literally owned the place. Ruby had joined her in the meantime, and the way they both stopped talking with conspirators' looks at Beth's entrance raised a red flag in her mind.

"What?" she snapped at them, maybe a bit more sharply than intended.

Ruby pulled on an innocent face.

"Hi B!" she greeted.

But Beth knew better. Jesus. Twenty-five years and Ruby still thought that she could keep a secret from her.

She raised a suspicious eyebrow, "What were you two talking about?"

"Nothing," Annie replied with a dismissive wave of her head. "Just wondering when you'd actually... you know... tell Scott that you're not..."

Beth's look grew more and more intimidating until Annie's voice naturally faded out.

She shook her head, her damp hair sending droplets of water around her shoulders, before she spoke with her steadiest voice, "I won't. I changed my mind."

"Honey, you were about to _break up_ with him!" Ruby severely reminded her with a disbelieving eye roll.

"Yeah, and what about Rio's—" Annie started.

"Oh, Rio is completely irrelevant here!" Beth scoffed, wishing that her hilarity sounded more natural. "Remember that... _thing_ I told you about? Well, it's gone. For good."

Annie and Ruby pulled on worried faces and Beth's annoyance grew itching. The girls' concerns were somehow flattering, and genuinely nice, but couldn't they be _happy_ for her, just once?

"Hey, what's the problem? I thought you liked Scott!"

Ruby shook her head, "Oh sweetie, we love Scott! He's not the problem here!"

"It's just that... you're doing that thing when you talk about him," Annie explained.

Beth squinted, "What thing?"

"Your Dean face."

"My what?"

"It's that face that you used to make whenever we asked you how things were going with Dean, and you were like everything's fine."

"I don't have a Dean face!" Beth vigorously protested.

Ruby gently nodded, her eyes wide open in disbelief, "Oh you do, sweetie."

"Yes, it's that thing you do with your nose... and then you pull your hair... And I'm like wow, everybody stay calm and keep their panties on! Because clearly nothing's happening down there!" Annie colorfully spelled out.

Beth cleared her throat with annoyance, "Well, thank you for your concerns, but I'm fine. Scott is nothing like Dean. He's great, and it is happening."

"There it is! You're doing it again!" Annie exclaimed.

"Oh yeah, you're right, she's totally making her Dean face!" Ruby approved.

Bet puffed in exasperation, "I'm going to murder you!"

And maybe it was because of the girls' insistence. But when Scott came over later in the afternoon she welcomed him with a delirious amount of affection.

"Hey, nice to see you too!" Scott managed to stammer from under her kissing deluge.

And, well. To be fair, she'd barely let him close the front door behind him, let alone taking off his coat.

"What, you don't like it?" she asked as she pulled away, seductively pouting although there was a hint of warning in her demeanor.

"Baby you know I love it," he said, pulling her back at him to kiss her again. "I'm just... surprised, I guess? I mean, in a good way!"

She smiled, somehow pleased.

"Well, we're taking things to the next level. That's exciting. We should celebrate!" She pulled away and scurried to the kitchen to fix them drinks, while she kept talking to him from behind the kitchen island, "So, I've been thinking. Maybe you could use Dean's study for your work stuff? I barely use this room anyway."

"Oh, so you made your decision about the house?" he asked.

She joined him in the middle of the living room with the drinks, a goofy smile on her face as she handed him his. They clinked glass, both suddenly silent, and she took a long sip before she answered.

"I mean... For now. I think it's best for the kids, not too much change all at once."

Scott nodded in admittance, "Makes sense."

"We could get you a new desk," she suggested, managing to make it sound flirtatious although... well, it was just a desk. Nothing less appealing than that.

He smiled, "You really thought this through, huh?"

And the truth was, she had. After the girls had left she'd wandered around the house, making plans and figuring new arrangements. She inflicted to Scott a full exposé of the results of her considerations, and they sipped drink after drink while writing down a list of new goods to buy. And honestly, she had to refrain herself from putting _everything_ on the list. She wanted a fresh start, and the idea of bringing in twenty years of history with Dean printed like a second skin on every item of furniture was rather cringy. To not say doomed.

"Hey, do you want to check the bedroom?" she asked after a while with an obvious and frankly quite obscene blush.

He nodded with a knowing smile, and she took his hand in hers, guiding him to the bedroom where she didn't even bother to pretend she'd led him there for furniture inspection. And she... well, she quite deserved it after all. It did count as delayed birthday sex, right? It wasn't before an hour later, as she was curled naked in his arms, one finger dancing over his chest, that she pensively considered the specific history of that bed. The one tattooed over the headboard with permanent ink.

"We should get a new bed too," she muttered.

Scott gently groaned his acknowledgement and dropped a kiss in her hair before he asked, "So when do you want to do this? The shopping part, I mean."

"Next week?"

He gave it some thoughts, mentally catching up with his schedule.

"Sounds good. I could free myself up on Wednesday," he eventually offered.

"Okay."

She settled back, her cheek against his chest, and she closed her eyes, the vibration of his heartbeat reverberating in her jawbone. She had a delivery scheduled over the next week. She would get fresh money to spend on new furniture. It was happening. She was moving in with him. Suddenly it all got very real and it made something clench tight in her chest. But it was probably only the perspective of an upcoming cash drop that made her feel slightly nauseous.

Because the sure thing was, she didn't want to ever see or hear about Rio again. Thinking about his rejection the last time she'd seen him, the anger in his eyes, the violence with which he'd pushed her against the wall, the _pearls_ , it was enough to... actually she didn't want to even _think_ about it. Over the following days, she just erased him from her thought and acted as if he'd never been a part of her life at all. Of course there was still the slightly embarrassing fact that she washed his cash. But honestly, she didn't expect him to show up at any meeting anymore, just like he'd avoided _every_ delivery in the past few weeks, delegating the trouble of dealing with her to his lower staff. But just in case, some psychological anticipation could be worth the effort.

She'd been wrong to worry, though. And well, this shouldn't even have come as a surprise at this point. How could she even expect him to be anything else but the deceitful and mean coward that he was and had always been? For some unknown reason, the fact that he didn't show up infuriated her even more. There was a part of her that just wanted to yell at him, but obviously he would deny her even that.

The warehouse had turned into an empty chamber, only resonating with echoes of him, and maybe a darker stain on the floor where he'd been shot if she squinted really hard. Demon and a couple of random boys — or maybe other customers, she'd never really been able to tell — were the only fleshy presence there.

The former barely greeted her, which was... new. But she wasn't going to throw a temper tantrum because a minor gangbanger wouldn't smirk at her entrance, right? More questionable was the fact that he didn't trade her duffel bag of washed cash for another round of counterfeit money, only handing her her cut in a small package. At this point she felt charitable enough to evoke a memory accident. Such things happened. And maybe she was also looking for a reason to yell at someone. To protest, against anything. So when Demon gave her his usual nod of dismissal, she stepped closer instead of leaving.

"I think you forgot to give me something," she whispered with detached plotting connivance.

Demon looked straight into her eyes for the first time since she'd entered the warehouse. His expression was hard to interpret but she could tell that he was already annoyed with her.

"Nah. Ain't forgotten nothin'," he grunted, shaking his head.

"Then what am I supposed to bring back next time?" she acidly retorted. "I can't make cash appear from the void yet, you know?"

And the truth was, even if she already knew, at this point she didn't want to see it. She didn't want to admit the truth hanging in front of her, that truth which had been clear since the moment she'd seen her pearls in an envelope with her — terribly calligraphed — name on it.

Demon sighed, talking to her exaggeratedly slow as if she was a four-year-old, "Ain't no next time."

She shivered. Beyond the narcissistic hurt of a street gang rejection, she also, well. Kind of needed the money. This whole thing had _consequences_ on real people for God's sake!

"What... what does it mean?" she asked, her voice suddenly shaky.

"It means you ain't workin' for us no more."

"But... But I still owe you a lot of money!" she protested.

Never in her life had she been more eager to pay back a debt.

"Yeah, your tab's been cleared off."

_When does it end?_

Well, now she had her answer. And suddenly, breathing was the hardest thing in the world. He... he couldn't do this to her.

She could handle his mood switches.

She could handle him showing off his girlfriend.

She could handle him not speaking to her, God, she _wanted_ him not to ever speak to her again!

But even after the pearls incident she'd refused to consider the possibility that he'd cut the loose end that she was for good. And especially not in such an impersonal fashion. And, well. There _was_ this not-so-insistent part of her brain willing to remind her that Rio had indeed made this personal and clearly signified her dismissal.

But she hadn't gotten it at the time, and now she wanted... What? An explanation, for sure. A goodbye, maybe.

"Can I speak to your manager?" she asked Demon with a dangerously honey-dipped voice.

Demon, who'd transferred his attention over someone else rolled his eyes back at her with impatience.

"Nah."

"You do realize I saved his fucking life, right?" she almost shouted back.

The tall and shady guy Demon was talking to in a low voice turned his head at her but she didn't care. Demon did care, though. For the first time ever since she'd been around, he looked at her with something scary in his eyes.

"You should go home, Mrs. Boland," he muttered, the warning clearly perceptible underneath his quiet tone.

And just like that Beth got aware of... everything. Every little thing she'd never paid attention to before, convinced that she was somehow in the bliss of Rio's protection. Guns shaped under the loose fabric of T-shirts. Tense muscles underneath a so-called relaxed fashion from which emerging would take exactly a split second. A general vibe of wariness in the room.

Suddenly she realized that she was the unwelcome, the enemy. She stepped towards the entrance door when she remembered about another kind of enemy. The black cars at her birthday party. Demon's warnings.

"Wait!" she turned back, "What about Ian? What if he's after me? I have children, you know!"

Demon reluctantly met her gaze, and this time he was clearly past grating annoyance, "So?" he said.

Just when she opened her mouth to spit back a sharp reply, his hand conveniently came across the butt of his gun and she backed off. She could barely breathe during her whole drive home, a tight knot having settled in her chest. And it was still there when she woke up on the next morning.

"Beth? Honey? Are you okay?"

Scott snapped his fingers in front of her and she emerged from the daze she'd been deeply absorbed in, absent-mindedly staring at a pile of lilac bedding. She shook her head, eyes fluttering, trying to forget the heavy feeling in her chest, the nauseating anxiety that had surged out of nowhere.

"Yeah... What do you think of these? I mean I like the color but I'm not sure of the pattern..."

Scott frowned, "What about the blue-green ones over there?"

"Oh I hadn't seen them, they could work!"

Scott pushed the cart in the crowded aisles of the department store and she followed, a bit dizzy. They'd spent the whole afternoon picking new furniture and housewares, and the initial excitement was slowly giving way to exhaustion. Scott seemed to genuinely enjoy himself, though, and for some reason it made her angry.

Although he probably really liked shopping, on second thought. How to explain otherwise the insane amount of time he'd probably spent wandering around the aisles of some giant store to organize her birthday party? Except that this time... She frowned. It wasn't her sighing self that he'd had by his side on that day.

"Scott?" she asked as he was staring at curtain rods with a focused expression on his face, his intense concentration honestly bordering concerning.

"Mhh?"

"Are you having an affair with Trisha?"

And God, what was wrong with her? She knew the answer to that, didn't even need his confirmation. She just... for some reason she wanted to fight. A mix of frustration and anxiety was tearing her apart, the knot in her chest suddenly tighter, as if someone had yanked the strings too hard while lacing an imaginary bodice on her. She desperately needed to blow off some steam in the only way she knew.

Scott looked at her in shock, "What?"

His confusion jolted her back to reality and she shook her head, blushing, "I mean... you guys seemed really close at my birthday party, and I had no idea that you were... seeing each other. And I know that you're not sleeping with her!" she precipitately added, eager to make it sound like a really ill-timed joke.

He still looked puzzled but there was a light of understanding in his eyes, and somehow she hated that he didn't get mad from her ridiculous assumptions. She hated the reassuring gentleness with which he explained to her how Trisha and him had kept in touch after their unexpected — or so-called, Beth internally scoffed — encounter at the dry-cleaning. How they'd had coffee together a couple of times and become sort of friends, eventually leading them to plan a party together. And how Trisha was too young for him to even consider anything that would remotely near the boundaries of friendship with her.

"Come on Beth, she's a baby! She reminds me of my little cousin Ally who's still in college!" he laughed.

"Oh trust me she's more of an adult than you think," Beth grumbled between her teeth, too low for him to register it.

"Why are you so upset about it?" he asked, frowning.

As if she knew it herself! All she knew was that there was this desperate frustration roaring inside of her that she needed out. But Scott didn't deserve to be the outlet of her irrational anger, so she played her easiest card.

"I already told you that Dean... cheated on me with younger, slimmer women, so... I may have some triggers," she muttered, staring at the floor in a repentant fashion.

After all she was only trading one truth for another here. It couldn't be considered as really lying.

"Well you don't have to worry, okay?" he gently said.

He slipped a finger under her chin, pulling her face up and giving her lips a tender peck.

"Okay," she nodded, her eyes reluctantly meeting with his.

But her inner conflict was still on and he saw it immediately. 

"Hey. Are you okay? You seem a little bit... jumpy these days," he said. "You know that we don't have to rush this, if that's—"

"No, I'm fine!" she cut him, on the verge of panic. "It's nothing! I've been stressed out at work, you know... Or maybe it's just hormonal or something," she added with a reassuring smile.

Because surely, this permanent shrinking feeling in her ribcage was absolutely nothing but a momentary disorder.

Annie raised her eyebrows at the absolute mess in the living room, including a pile of half-unpacked furniture waiting for assembly and Beth's fulminating presence in the middle of the chaos.

"Wow, sounds like you're really going for it, huh?"

Beth snorted, refusing to put more effort in her answer. She didn't even look at her sister, her eyes focused on a stick which, _supposedly_ , was a leg from a chair. The jointing modalities with the rest of the said chair remained nebulous.

"You do realize that at some point you'll have to mention working for a crime lord if you share a roof, right?"

Beth cut her middle finger with the screwdriver in a wrong movement and she hissed out a curse. She sucked the cut, swallowing the droplets of blood until the pain faded away and she got back to work, too angry to go get a band-aid.

"I won't have to. It's over," she half mumbled.

"Which one's over? Scott or homeboy?" Annie replied, taunting.

Beth let out a frustrated moan, "Annie!"

"What? The situation's constantly evolving with you, it's hard to be up-to-date!"

Truth was, she still didn't know why she was so riled up and why everything felt so wrong. And it certainly wasn't Annie's fault. But she just exploded.

"Oh my God, have you all decided to get on my nerves lately?"

"Wow, wow, chill out, sis!" Annie backed off, her voice coated with offence. "Call me when you've stopped jumping for the jugular! By the way, you've got mail," she added on her way out, a contextually nonsensical supplement of information that had Beth rolling her eyes despite its relative typicality coming from Annie.

She heard the front door loudly slamming and she smashed the chair leg on the floor with an exasperated groan of frustration. After a moment of hesitation she kicked the whole half-chair for good luck. Then she went to the mailbox with a sigh. Hell, legal envelopes were never a pleasant sign. Nor was the reminder that she still had bills and a mortgage to pay while she didn't make any fresh money on her own anymore.

Beth stayed up late that night. In her frenetic rush for the bliss of moving in with Scott, she'd forgotten about the few, so insignificant details that were incompressible expenses. She'd forgotten that making money had recently become a past-time verb for her. But no matter the direction she was looking at, she'd need income at some point. And especially after she'd bought the equivalent of a whole new house over the course of a week. Obviously she could just decide to rely on Scott's salary, even temporarily. But... no. Never again. One day, she'd made a promise to herself, a promise to never be kept in the dark again. And she intended to keep it.

And sure, it took her a few more bourbons to get there, but eventually she just had to agree with herself that she needed to get back in, well... _business_. It was the only thing she knew how to do, and the job she was best at. She stared for long minutes at her phone before she eventually dialed the number.

The fact that he didn't pick up shouldn't have come as a surprise at this point.

She tried a few more times over the next couple of days, still unsuccessfully. And... Fine. Maybe, just maybe, it was after all for the best. She'd have to find a legit job of her own, which clearly wasn't her favorite option. But perhaps it would have some perks, perhaps she would even like it. She'd seen an ad on the other day on the front of a cards and gifts shop she liked. She could give it a shot. And at least she would be able to tell Scott about it.

_"Missed me sweetheart?"_

_The sound of his voice made her heart skip a beat. She hadn't seen nor heard him coming, and even if watching the kids from her bench at the park had caught her full attention, it still felt like he hadn't been there a split second before. But there he was now, standing in front of her, the late afternoon sunlight playfully outlining his cheekbones. He was smiling and for an instant she lost her breath._

_Until she realized that he wasn't looking at her._

_Oh, right. For some reason, she hadn't noticed until now that Trisha was sitting next to her on the bench. The brunette's eyes sparkled and she literally beamed at Rio._

_"Always, honey!" she said with a bright smile, jumping back on her feet to meet him and steal a kiss from his lips._

_He kissed her back with a soft groan, his hand in Trisha's middle back, and Beth couldn't take her eyes off of this, staring at them with a dreaded fascination. Until Rio cast her a petrifying side glance and her heart turned into a heavy stone, endlessly sinking down her empty chest._

_Because Rio's gaze wasn't the challenging kind. It wasn't mean, nor victorious. It was nothing. Nothing but cold indifference, the worst kind of all._

_And something started to ache in her chest, so much. She couldn't breathe anymore, suffocating under the pain, and when she lowered her gaze over her breast she saw the heavy flow of blood, running from the three holes in her chest, and taking her life away._

_She raised her eyes back at Rio's cold gaze. Trisha had vanished, and he was staring at her with focus in his eyes, his palms pressed together and his fingers intertwined. She tried to speak to him but she couldn't speak nor move anymore, and when he turned away and left a moment later, she just watched herself die, powerless._

Beth woke up with a gasp, still feeling the gradually fading waves of pain in her chest, and it took her a while to get back to a reality where watching Rio kissing someone else didn't send bullets straight to her heart. She had not dreamed of Rio since before her birthday, and the dreams she had back then were... different. This one was a new type of kink, and clearly not the good kind. And it wouldn't just take her a few minutes to get over it.

Fuck. Why couldn't she have normal people's types of dreams where she would see Rio turn into a shoe while eating oranges? Or just not dream of him at all? Was that too much to ask?

Too restless to fall back asleep, she silently left the bed, unwilling to wake Scott up. He softly grunted in his sleep when she tiptoed across the bedroom but he didn't move.

She sat down barefoot in the middle of the living room, surrounded by skeletons of half assembled furniture, the cemetery of her life, really, and an exhausted sigh escaped from her lips.

_When does it end?_

The atrocious twist in her chest was back and at this point she didn't know what would make it go away. Or rather... She knew it too well. She sneered at herself. Well, it couldn't be more explicit this time, could it be? Why couldn't she just agree with herself that it had just been sex? That the only risk she'd taken that night was catching STDs and not feelings? Not to mention that they'd used protection, _for once_.

She shook her head, trying to scatter her thoughts away. It didn't matter anyway. It was over. Rio had made it extremely clear. And for once she was glad that he hadn't returned her calls. It would make it easier to move on. And forget. She silently came back to bed, taut in her brand new resolution.

"Honey? Could you pass me board number... C1?" Scott asked, squinting at the assembly instructions.

Beth stretched her hand in a compliant intent before she froze, stopped dead in her move and caught by a feeling she couldn't explain to herself. The heaviness in her chest had suddenly reached a whole new level, making it hard for her to just breathe, along with a terrible feeling of wrongness.

"I'm sorry but I can't do this anymore."

It came out in an exhausted murmur before she even realized it. Because she saw it now, taking in the two of them building a book case together in the study, like a normal couple. She didn't have a Dean face. She had a Dean _state of mind_. And it wasn't exactly Scott's fault if she cast herself, again, into this wicked mold of perfection. Nor was he responsible for the doom of her dream, which still haunted her. But she just instantly knew that she could never, ever, show him these truest, darkest sides of her. And she was past the point where she could pretend that those had never existed.

Scott turned a surprised face at her, his eyes peering at her expression above the frame of his reading glasses.

"Oh? Okay then why don't you go rest in the living room? I can finish this alone."

Her last chance at pretending that she'd never said what she said. And there was a part of her which really wanted to. But God, she couldn't even _breathe!_

She shook her head, on the verge of panic, "No I mean... I can't do _us_... anymore."

This had to be the worst break-up line of all times.

"What? Why?"

_Because my body fucking tells me not to!_

"Is it because of board number C1?" he asked in a tentative joke. "Honey, if you're freaking out about this whole moving in thing, I get it, I mean we can—"

"No!" she screamed out of despair.

Could he just stop giving her exit after easy exit? Otherwise she would never manage to go through what she had to do. Say what she had to say.

"This life you want with me, I... I can't give it to you. I'm sorry," she tried, her voice already breaking with panicked sobs.

But the knots slightly uncoiled in her chest and although she still felt terrible about this, something just felt a little bit righter than the minute before.

Scott's expression changed.

"Are you breaking up with me?" he asked.

And despite the incredulity in his voice, the incomprehension, from the look in his eyes she could tell that he already knew.

And just... How could she even go all the way through this? This whole thing was decidedly heartbreaking. For an instant Beth was tempted to take it all back, invoke an insane and absolutely not funny prank, anything to pretend that nothing had ever happened. She just didn't have it in her to finish this job, the hardest she'd ever done. And she'd done some pretty shitty ones, heartbreaking ones, even, the kind that— No. Systematic comparison had to stop. It wouldn't get her anywhere, especially on that field. Because Scott was a good person, and that was what made it so much harder for her to hurt him.

She slowly nodded, unable to hold her tears back, unable to _speak_. And God, this was getting frankly annoying, the way she still couldn't breathe properly. But this time it was because she just knew that she'd burst into tears if she even tried to use her lungs again.

"Oh."

Scott took a few seconds to absorb the shock — and, Jesus, he could have all the time he wanted — before he looked back at her.

"I don't understand," he murmured.

She sniffled, "Me neither."

His expression changed under the enlightenment of a sudden understanding. A hypothesis, which would explain everything.

"Is there someone else?"

_No!_

"Maybe... I don't know..." she shook her head in a vain attempt to think straight. "It's just... Believe me, I wish I could give you this but I just can't," she eventually admitted.

Silence settled in for a protracted moment, only punctuated with her haphazard sniffles. She couldn't even look him in the eyes. In the list of hurtful things she'd done to people who didn't deserve it, this had to hit the top. And she'd shot a man. Just to be clear on magnitude estimations.

At some point he slowly reached for her, timidly landing a hand on her arm and she accepted the shoulder he offered her to cry on. She snuggled against him, doing her best at forgetting that she wasn't the one who most needed comfort here. She spent several minutes in his embrace, softly crying, until her brain resumed working. 

"You shouldn't be doing that," she protested as she slightly pulled away, "You should be angry at me, smash stuff, slam doors..."

"Hey, this isn't easy for anyone," he gently said.

She reluctantly met his gaze, noticing how bright and watery his eyes were, and... God. What was she thinking? There was so much compassionate love in the way he was looking at her that for one excruciating second she urged herself to call it off.

She still could pretend that she'd freaked out about the togetherness of building furniture, that she was impulsive, maybe a bit excessive around the edges. It wouldn't be _that_ far from the truth. And he would understand. He _always_ understood. That was one of the problems. Why did he have to be so nice? Couldn't he have some serious flaws that she would wrap around her shoulders and convince herself they were the reasons she was walking away?

She wiped her tears with the back of her hand.

"I think... I think you should go," she stammered, quickly, before the panic submerged what remained of her determination.

"Okay..."

He gently slipped a finger under her chin and stared at her for a couple of seconds. Then, slowly, he leant over her and pressed his lips against the corner of her mouth in a silent farewell. She closed her eyes, knowing that this was the moment. The moment to say goodbye to a life she'd thought she wanted.

He pulled back and his hand moved towards a lock of her hair that had escaped from her bun and was sticking to her wet cheek. And just... No.

_Don't_

This was forbidden territory. She quickly pushed the rebellious hair behind her ear herself, stealing from him a move that he didn't — couldn't — own.

Her reaction seemed to wake him up from a trance, and he got back on his feet.

"I... We'll talk about arrangements later," he said, unsure.

She nodded. Apart for sharing non built furniture, there wouldn't be many. She followed him at fair distance on his way out.

Right when he was about to cross the front door threshold she softly called, "Scott?"

He turned back at her, a tiny light of hope that maybe she'd changed her mind flickering in his eyes. And a part of her desperately wished that she could ask him to stay. Her heart twisted in her chest. She swallowed.

"I am really, really sorry."

He slowly nodded and a moment later he was gone.

She felt slightly better after Scott left. Well, apart from the fact that she'd just ruined her life, obviously. But at least she could breathe again. She knew she'd made the right decision, if such designation could apply to walking away from something objectively good for her.

She spent the following days in the weird in-between which separated celebration from mourning. And she wasn't even sure of what. The only certitude that gradually imposed itself to her mind was that she had a mountain of bills to pay, and lived in some sort of hobo paradise of half-built furniture. And selling or returning those would only solve a part of the equation.

She needed money and, just like the gambling addict that she was in some sort of twisted way, she returned to the only money-making path she knew. Except that this very particular casino was a moving shadow with no tangible front door. She tried to call every number she had saved in her contacts list, hoping that maybe one of Rio's boys would be reckless enough to pick up at the third ring.

And after forty-eight hours of obsessive calls night and day, she had to admit that they wouldn't. So she drove back to the warehouse, hoping to find some gangbanger there and... Well, the next step of her plan was unclear at this point. Grabbing them by the collar of their shirts didn't sound like a particularly inspired move, and she didn't own a gun, so. Finding anyone there was already a bold assumption, as she realized. She spent almost a whole week in evening stakeouts, but nobody showed up, and she meditated for a while about the downsides of working for literal ghosts.

Which left her with only one option. And she had to admit that it was a dirty one, even for her. Not the... _implementation_ , really, that was just another round of detective playing. But the ramifications of it were... well, honestly there were serious chances that he'd kill her for that. Although, maybe if he'd just made himself easier to find, she wouldn't have to resort to such extreme expedients. So that was on him, in a way.

What school had he mentioned at the charity dinner, again?

_Marcus goes to North Bridge_

All right. So she was doing this. She was stalking his _precious_ son. Because there was no way she would stalk Trisha again. She wasn't exactly sure of her eagerness to see Rio in the first place, but seeing the two of them together was definitely beyond the possibility of a discussion.

It took her a while though, and another round of stakeouts. Most of the times Marcus got picked up by a tall dark-haired woman with tanned skin and a bright smile, who Beth assumed was his mother. A few times she saw a blonde girl in her early twenties there for him too. A nanny, probably. Trisha came, once. A memorable time when Beth's head reached for the tiny space under the steering wheel of her car quicker than she'd thought she'd ever be capable of.

And then. Finally. It was soccer practice day — she knew Marcus's whole weekly schedule by then — and they'd probably finished a bit late, because it was already dark outside when the little boy came out and headed straight to the black Cadillac parked on the other side of the street. She sucked in a gasp at the sight of Rio climbing out of the car to greet Marcus, and she almost, almost, gave up on her plan. But... fuck it. She needed to speak to him. She took advantage of their father-son chit-chat time to sneak out of her car and get closer.

She could tell the moment Rio noticed her. He mumbled a few unintelligible words to his son who nodded in response and quickly climbed on the backseat before his father rolled his eyes at her. He didn't pull out a gun or anything, which she took as an encouragement to step closer until she was at an armlength from him.

"Elizabeth."

A statement, dipped in light sarcasm.

"I tried to call you," she replied, defensive, pretending that his problem was only circumstantial.

Not that she didn't know that _she_ was the problem.

He smiled. A wide, genuine smile, which unraveled her as much as it infuriated her. He took his time before he spoke, letting her enjoy the show for as long as possible.

"Yeah I blocked your number."

Oh great. Because of course he was one of these people who only spoke in quotes. The fact that those were hers might be a little more uncommon, but it didn't make it less obnoxious. She rolled her eyes, putting on her own show of exasperated sighs and incredulous head shaking. She'd closed her every shutter so hard as soon as she'd seen him that she barely registered the impact of the blow. She just knew that she'd have to deal with it later, that it would probably bruise. Metaphorically speaking.

"Well here I am now," she eventually replied.

He squinted, a cruel spark dancing in his eyes, "Oh you need help to screw a mural light or summin'?"

And just.

"How do you even know about that?" she almost shouted with bulging eyes, the shock stealing her breath.

He tilted his head, considering her with curiosity and a hint of condescension in his raised eyebrow. _'C'mon, connect the dots, Elizabeth'_ his fashion seemed to tell. She swallowed, incapable of just thinking. How did he always manage to come up with the one thing she'd never have anticipated? Her silence must have elongated more than she realized, because eventually he spoke. Low.

"Ain't no big fan of it either. Case you were wonderin'."

The epiphany dazzled her mind for an instant.

"He told Trisha, didn't he?" she whispered.

Rio snorted, refusing to even dignify her rhetorical question with an articulated answer. She bit her lip, conflicted. The fact that he knew and had not... come to her and taunted her about it, teased her, implied that she was worth better. That was _disappointing_. Because somewhere in the depths of her mind she... well maybe she hoped that he still cared, even a little, enough to torture her at least. Just like she still cared enough to stalk his _son_.

Because this tiny kernel of care was the reason she had those awful dreams. It was what made her heart ache with anxiety whenever they both seemed to walk away too definitively from each other. It had contributed to make her throw away a promise of happiness without him. It—

"So why you here again?" he asked, his voice tired and annoyed, waking her up from her internal lament.

"I want my job back. I need the money."

He chuckled, "You got bored that quick, huh?"

God. If it weren't for decades of training at civilized habits she would have hit him.

"Yeah I'm sorry but this business I'm in, it ain't for the entertainment of PTA bitches," he added, looking away. "Now go build that legit lil life of yours with whatever decent white dude you wanna date."

Mostly dismissive was his tone, but maybe a hint of bitterness was cracking his mask. Or perhaps it was just her imagination.

"It's over," she dully said.

His eyes came back at her, immediately, his head moving along with the jolt of a whiplash.

"Oh your secret informant didn't tell you that, did she?" Beth pushed with a touch of mockery.

And, well. Scott not being consumed with the urge to tell Trisha about their break-up didn't come as a surprise. But the fact that such news had the power to throw Rio off-balance did. He quickly pulled himself together, though, she couldn't deny him _that_.

"Why?"

He sounded genuinely curious, maybe even a bit sorry for her. Which felt... weird. She sighed, cleared her throat. Tried to buy herself some time to explain something she didn't even quite understand herself.

"I'm... I'm tired of having to lie about everything. To everyone. How can I... how can I even _build_ anything trustful when I'm basically hiding myself?"

Still peering at her carefully, he shrugged with a neutral expression on his face.

"Then stop lyin'. That's why I cleaned off your debt."

"What?"

He chewed on his bottom lip, briefly averting his gaze. There was an exhausted aura emanating from his feature. Along with something else, unfathomable. Annoyance, maybe. Regrets, perhaps. Weariness, most likely.

"You always said you wanted an out, yeah? Now you got an out. This is your world, Elizabeth. Thinkin' that you could be a part of mine was a mistake."

She swallowed, letting the truth, his truth, sink in for a while. Then she nodded, nibbling at her bottom lip and unconsciously mimicking him as she slowly but surely came to a conclusion that she had not even acknowledged to herself yet.

"I... You're right. I'm not a part of you world. Except that... I don't belong to mine anymore. It's not what makes me happy," — he scoffed, scornful, at the mention of her happiness and she immediately corrected — "It's not what I want."

He shrugged with relaxed shoulders, his hands buried deeply in the pockets of his jacket, "Alright, what do you want, then?"

The openness of the question took her aback for a while and she stared at him, her mouth open, before she said the first thing that crossed her mind.

"I... I want a job."

"Then go get one. You got a lotta new skills for your resume, yeah?"

She sighed, "It's not what... I mean I want _this_ job. With you."

Her hand gestured between the two of them in an including motion and his face crumpled with anger. Possibly disgust too.

"Well, maybe you should have thought 'bout it before you shot me!"

And why did they always have to come back to this? She was sick of going in circles every time they tried to address something other than counting cash. Ever since he'd come back into her life they'd tiptoed around the Unspoken. Swept it under the carpet of void interactions, probably hoping that it would just disappear if they didn't try to solve it. But it was still there, hanging above their heads and trapping them in a loop where he'd play this trump card every time he'd need to escape from her. And she was tired of it. It was just unfair.

"Okay, you want to have this conversation now?" she angrily snapped. "Fine. You have the right to be angry. But you cannot say that I didn't do my job back then."

"What?"

The mix of shock and surprise in his eyes would have been comical if she wasn't so riled up already.

"Isn't it what you always said?" she insisted, "Putting on the big girl panties and cleaning the mess? That night, _you_ were my problem and I solved it. And I won't apologize for that because I'm not sorry. But it's not—" her voice almost broke, anger and sobs fighting for the lead but she managed to get it back under control, "I never wished you that!"

Somehow she desperately wanted to make it clear that it wasn't personal. That the way she felt about him had nothing to do with the decision she'd made that night. That it had never meant that she hated him to the point of killing him.

"I mean I didn't let them kill you in that warehouse," she added more softly.

"That's your ass you were savin' back then, darlin', not mine," he replied in a low, treacherous drawl.

"It was both," she firmly replied, looking straight into his eyes. "I... I wasn't ready to mourn you. Not _again_."

The confession left her mouth without asking permission from her brain and she instantly regretted displaying such an amount of naked truth. Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes but she blinked them back, trying her best at hiding how frightened she was.

He lowered his gaze, chewing his bottom lip, and she anxiously waited for what would come next. He seemed bewildered, as if unsure of what he'd heard.

"Why?"

It came out in a low, hoarse whisper. A raspy murmur which unraveled her probably more than she should have let it. At least it was the only explanation she'd find later to justify the insanity that came out of her mouth next.

"Because you are the only person who I can be a hundred percent myself with," she blurted out. But oh, no, apparently she wasn't done yet handing him her insecurities on a silver plate. "And if I lose that, then... I don't know what to do with my life anymore."

Saying that he looked surprised by such honesty from her was clearly an understatement. To be fair she couldn't blame him, she was probably even more surprised than him. But he quickly disguised his passing turmoil under layers of irritation and annoyance as he stepped into her space. And the truth was, in that moment she just wanted to crawl out of her own skin. But she didn't step back.

He slipped an ungentle finger under her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze and the darkness in his eyes. She didn't blink under his touch. Nor did she falter.

"Just figure it out then. Ain't my problem," he eventually dropped.

And before she knew it his finger was gone and he'd walked past her, already climbing in his car. She watched him ensuring that Marcus was correctly seated before he took off with screeching tires, a dramatic effect which could have had more impact if it hadn't been the immediate follow-up of a daddy moment.

Beth didn't move for at least a minute, standing there as if glued to the pavement. Well. She'd played, and she'd lost. Time for closure. At least the suffocating tightness in her chest was gone. Only... it had been replaced by something else. Another kind of ache, most certainly. The thudding beat of a dull pain, sounding like the echo of a drumming bass, and tasting like defeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🎶 _It ain't wise, to need someone, as much as I depended on.... you..._ 🎶 (Chapter title from Bonnie Tyler in case it was still unclear)


	9. All The Things She Said

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rio has some thoughts he'd like to share with the group...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last three chapters were pretty Rio-less so this is a (not so) short Rio POV interlude.
> 
> This chapter was written months ago and has absolutely nothing to do with some videos that MM posted on IG. Noooo. Absolutely nothing... And the first who suggests that I should have titled it _Eye of the tiger_ , I swear...

Every time he's angry, or sad, or whatever, he goes boxin'. It's impressive what you can do with a pair of padded gloves and a punching ball. Way better than lying down on a shrink's stupid couch and whatnot. For hours, he kicks and punches his feelings away 'til they're too scared to come back. That's how he deals with shit. And he's got the feeling that this one's gonna be a particularly long night.

Shouldn't come as a surprise with Elizabeth, though. She _always_ riles him up beyond human possibility. But this time she's even gone way off her own fucking charts. He can't believe that she had the guts to track down _Marcus_. When it comes to boundaries, she's the last person in the fucking room to get the vibe. Besides, it must have taken her a while, cause despite what she seems to believe, she ain't particularly good at followin' people. And all this time and effort for what? For coming to bother him and whine 'bout her existential crisis? Talk 'bout efficiency. Does she seriously expect him to believe her bullshit? Somehow she's managed to make it through forty-something fucking years of her life without him and suddenly he's her reason for a livin'?

Nah.

He ain't buying that. He knows better. His right fist punches the ball hard and he watches it drawing a perfect curve in the air as a result before coming back in front of him like a boomerang. Alright. He'll give her that. These forty-something years look pretty _shitty_ from where he's standing.

But still. Ain't enough to pretend that she doesn't know what to do with herself without him. She's always had a special taste for melodramatic overstatements, summin' he can't believe he once found cute. Cause guess what. He knows the exact opposite of that. Ain't no better version of himself than when she's _not_ in the picture. That's when he's efficient. When he thinks straight. Bein' around her, on the other hand... It makes him act stupid. _React_ stupid. And that's the fucking problem.

But it's not cause she's been all about wanderin' around with horny eyes, recently. That he could get used to. Ain't exactly unflattering, so far. Neither it is that she kissed him that night, after she'd healed his arm. That's definitely on her, but he ain't got no issue with that. No _bigger_ issue than he's usually gettin' with everything else she does, at least.

The softness of her lips is dancing in his mind at the thought and he shakes his head as he practices his left hook with renewed energy, hoping that the memory will scatter like a bunch of flies. But she's clouded his brain like smoke, poisoning his every thought, and that's drivin' him crazy. He's been in there almost every night, for _weeks_ , trying to push the persistence of her skin away. Every. Fucking. Night.

He ain't here cause he's angry at her, though. For the record, a leather ball is not the receiving end of his punches when he's mad at actual _people_. Not that he thinks that he'd ever hit her, though, but that's not his fucking point.

He's here cause he's angry at himself. Because he fuckin' _responded_ , and he's kinda not been the same ever since. And he's got a serious issue with _that_.

He can't remember the last time he's been like this. Like... Does he have to say it? For real?

Scared.

Fuck, he hates the word, hates to admit it, but what you call someone who's hidin' from the people they're the most eager to see, huh? He hits the ball harder at the thought, lets out a frustrated groan. Even now, even after having barely seen her for weeks, all he can think about after she came to him earlier, asking for her job back, is how much he still wants her. And how much he shouldn't, for more reasons than he's actually willing to count. 

Cause here's the thing. This whole shit has a terrible air of déjà-vu. Look, he's already been sitting in the front row when it comes to see where this goes when he's obsessin' like that about her. He got the best fucking seats, the ones with panoramic view and everything, on that insane and unhealthy show. And guess what? Ain't no such thing as a happy ending. Shocking, right? Nah, seriously, this shit doesn't end good. For both of 'em. But mostly him. For the record, she ain't the one with three ugly scars disrupting the smooth and creamy skin of her pretty tits.

Worst part is, at some point back then he thought that his obsession for Elizabeth was gone for good. At least it seemed to have extinguished. She'd _shot_ him. Christ, only a fool would think that there could ever be a coming back from that. What she did is unforgivable. Period. That's... kinda why he's been keepin' her around so far. To prove a fuckin' point. To prove to himself that he got over it. And also cause the bitch still owes him a ton of money, but that's... quite false pretence. Tip of the iceberg and whatnot. And that's summin' that hasn't been lost upon the boys. Anyone else who wouldn't be _her_ would have already met with his usual way of collecting paybacks from bankrupt debtors. Bullets, if that was still unclear. 

But with her, he... he got curious. Wanted to see how things could work, _if_ things could work, with lust outta the equation. Cause the thing is, she's quite a smart ass. So keepin' her as an enemy, even a poorly skilled one — look, she doesn't exactly have the best track record there either — it ain't worth the trouble.

And killin' her... Well, he can't say that he didn't _consider_ it back in the days when he had a needle stuck in the crook of his elbow 24/7. But it's just... That would be a _waste_. With such spontaneous abilities to lie her ass out of any situation? A bossy control-freak with a fucking fast-speed computer instead of a brain? At this point she's already a gem for the business, the kind a man only finds once in his life.

Only problem is, she's... well. Not only gorgeous from the inside, to phrase it nicely. He punctuates this last thought with a series of angry jabs. Sweat is dripping from his forehead already, his muscles are aching, and he can feel his heartbeats pulsing along the scars on his chest, bringing up an all too familiar pain.

But he ain't done yet with tonight's session. Gettin' Elizabeth outta his head is a hella exhausting job. She's like a virus in his system, impossible to get rid of. Every time he thinks he's slammed the door and left her outside, she climbs her way back through the fucking window.

He takes a quick break cause he has to, cause even almost two fucking years later he still gotta get his heart and lungs checked once a month to make sure that he ain't pushing 'em too far outta their capacities. He takes that opportunity to trade the ball for a punching sack, more suitable to his current mood. Now that his body's warmed up he needs something strong enough to absorb his rage, summin' he can completely, blindly, unwind on.

It hasn't always been that bad, though. Elizabeth and him. He sorta had it under control in the shooting aftermath. Kept things strictly profesh, put on the whole scary show with guns, boys, threatening expressions and whatnot. Had been easy. She was already completely loosing it from the way he'd come back from the dead. She seemed to think he was a fucking zombie of summin'. Man, the shock in her eyes the first time he'd materialized in front of her... almost made the months he'd spent in recovery worth the pain.

Back then he was extremely dedicated to makin' her feel that she was at the bottom of the scale, that she was nothing but a death bait. One toe over the line and boom, gone. And it worked for a while. Or so he thought. He didn't even _see_ the problem in hidin' with her in that fucking closet. Could have done the same with Demon for what he minded. Well, not _everythin'_ for sure. Not what... ensued. To this day he still doesn't even understand where _that_ came from. He's never seen himself as the kind of man who thinks with his dick, but it looks like the latter has recently developed a conscience of its own. And that's... that's fucking annoying. The way she reacted and laughed at him... Man, he'd have killed her right away if he didn't know better.

But what should have narrowed itself to an extremely annoying incident turned into... an even more infuriating permanent state. And that's when shit got real ugly. Cuz then Elizabeth got to know 'bout Trisha. And that's the moment when he starts to inflict a flurry of strikes to the bag.

See, there's a clear line between work and, like, family? Not really the most suited word for what he means, though. Marcus's family. The rest is... whatever, who cares? _Inner circle_ will do. Rhea's inner circle. Trisha's inner circle. Every woman he dates is inner circle, 'til the relationship's over at least. Unless there's a living souvenir of said relationship, gratifying the happy mother with a permanent status. Not that he knows of this having happened more than once, though. He's always been extra careful to avoid even the _possibility_ of that.

Except twice.

The dreadful reminder goes with a grunt of pain as his fist meets the sack in a stronger punch than intended. To be fair he extensively paid these two imprudent encounters with sleepless nights that he spent cursing himself for his recklessness. Cause gettin' Elizabeth knocked up would have been, well, a gift to absolutely nobody. How much shit _that_ particular kid should have done in their former life to make such messed up debuts in this world, that goes way beyond his imagination. Nobody deserves that. Amen to pre-menopause or whatever for it didn't happen.

He wipes the sweat on his forehead with a towel, takes a short break to catch his breath. Back to the inner circle point, though. The thing is, inner circle means protection. He's got everyone's back, and the less they know, the safer they are. They ain't supposed to get mixed up with work, ever. So Elizabeth and Trisha getting to meet? Nuh huh. Not a good idea. Especially cause he knows Elizabeth's special taste for drama, how out of control she can be when she goes, well... nuts. For lack of a better word, cause really, this woman has pulled shit that would make it insulting towards nuts to call her that.

That last mistake's on him though. A petty revenge for the closet incident he couldn't resist to implement. But it seemed to trigger summin', unexpectedly for both ladies. The ensuing shenanigans were... fucking _not_ hilarious. Surprisingly Elizabeth didn't pull anything stupid first. Turns out Trisha was the sneaky one, which turned him simultaneously proud and pissed off. Retrospectively, he should have put an end to this shit right then. Things were already snowballing but he didn't realize it on time. Elizabeth played her cards smart and close to the chest, she didn't drop a big bomb over Trisha's head like he'd have bet she would. Not that he'd have _wished_ that to happen either, though.

Instead she kept her cool all along, she even had the balls to belittle his performance in the sack 'til she made him sound like a boring, below-average toy-boy. Which he might be, for all he knows. Always room for improvement, right? But just... not with her. He still remembers the desperate starvation in her eyes, the noises she'd made, the way he'd had the shape of her nails printed in the skin of his back for _weeks_ after the depraved afternoon he'd spent at her place back then, before... everything.

He abruptly hits the bag out of an angry impulse. The nerves she got to come claimin' she doesn't fucking _remember_ it! He punches stronger until his fists are hurting from the repeated impacts. She knows his buttons, sometimes even better than he does himself. And she pushed them all that night, when she lectured him about the state of his relationship with Trisha. Jeez, when did she get so _entitled?_ As if she's been handlin' her own relationship any better, as if she's somehow won the right to _counsel_ him, in any field. As if lying wasn't part of the equation, for both of them.

And then, and then, and then... real shit happened.

Then he got shot in his own fucking warehouse, for starters. But it's still not the worst part of what happened that night. He punches the sack uninterruptedly now, splattering droplets of sweat all around as he tries to rip the rage off his body. Alright. He lies to protect the people he cares about, that's summin' he admits. But he ain't no cheater. Never been. The fact that Elizabeth took even _that_ away from him is revolting. The fact that he broke that one rule of his to someone who almost killed him is _gross_. And the fact that he enjoyed it, while it even wasn't their best time by far, but it was just her, and it... well, that's unforgivable.

Cuz she was exactly as he remembered, all about sensuous softness and hungry passion once she got her claws safely retracted. Christ, he's been fuckin' _dreaming_ of her ever since. He wants more of her. All the time. He wants to see her naked and take his time, his head buried between her thighs. He want to touch her and make sure there's not a square inch of her skin that he hasn't kissed, or licked, or bitten. He wants to fuck her until she passes out. He wants to hear her come, over and over.

But just.... Forget it. Nah. Can't happen again, man. So he's been tryin' to drown the memories of her in the oblivion of someone else's body. Never have Trisha and he had as much sex as over the past couple of months. But it hasn't been enough. And that's the scary part. Cause giving in to Elizabeth's siren call once, he could put it on the blood loss, or that cheap bourbon of hers which tastes like kerosene. With a bit of insistence, he could even manage to convince himself that he pity-fucked her, as a thank-you note for saving his life and healing him. Yeah, that could work. Except for the part where he hasn't been able to stop thinkin' about it ever since it happened.

So keepin' his distance after that, until his mind would, like, get back to fucking normal, that was...the only reasonable thing to do.

But... there is more. This is not just 'bout shitty romcom material. He'd just escaped from a _killing_ attempt. Wasn't his first — she should know — and won't be his last, but... Alright. He didn't see that one comin'.

Especially because it had all started with Elizabeth bein' stalked, a tentative move from Ian that he'd found almost cute at the time. And also... kinda hilarious. Fucking amateur. Following Elizabeth while making sure she's aware of it is the _least_ smart thing to do, bro. At all times. Best way to end up with an infuriated puma, especially if she believes that her precious kids are threatened. But he assumed that the guy was just fishin' for easy intel with the worst target choice. He thought that they could both leave it there with a casual deal cause money solves... a lotta problems.

Except that before he knew it he had a fucking takeover attempt on his plate. The serious kind. That night in the warehouse... she coulda been really hurt. Killed maybe. Oh, come on, who is he foolin'? She _should_ be dead by now. They both should be. Underestimating Ian is one of the biggest mistakes he's ever made, and if she hadn't sent the alarm and bought him the two minutes he needed to get back to his senses... If she hadn't summoned that boss bitch of hers lying somewhere in the entitled folds of her mommy brain...

If...

He strikes a series of strong blows, suddenly angry for no reason. He hates to admit... _that_. That he made a stupid mistake and that she's the one who cleaned up the mess and saved both their lives, for _once_. That somehow it made her even more attractive than the usual and that he fucked her for a _reason_ after she took care of it. Of him. See? No matter his trail of thoughts, he always circles back to this. That's the kind of obsessive loop he's been stuck into for the past few weeks. Fucking hilarious. Or it would be, if it wasn't the least funny joke of all times.

Hell, ghosting her and cuttin' her off was his only option at that point. For the sake of his mental health. For his safety. And hers. Fuck, he does keep her alive for a reason, and it ain't for letting someone else finish that particular job. He can't take the risk of havin' Ian using her and hurting her again to get to him. She ain't war casualty material, but she definitely will be if Ian ever figures out that he does give a shit 'bout what happens to her.

Which is... also another fucking problem. Cause as usual Elizabeth blurs every line she walks over and she's already half-wormed her way into inner circle when she's supposed to be strictly business. He shouldn't care. He shouldn't want to _protect_ her. He shouldn't have showed up at her fucking birthday to make sure that Ian's boys wouldn't mess up with her or her folks, instead of sending a boy for it. That was already breaking a couple of ground rules. And okay, it turned out that Ian _was_ messin' up with her. But still. Sayin' that this was a fucking bad idea is a massive understatement.

She just...

She's got this pretty unique superpower of makin' his cock and his fists twitch _at the same fucking time_. And when she dragged him in that bathroom of hers to ask him about Ian, he... he was equally close to kiss her or murder her. She drives him _that_ insane. So he chose the only valid road he could take given the circumstances. Bein' a total dick, hopin' that she'd be the first one to back off before he'd cross whatever line he'd regret later. And the hurt he saw in her big blue eyes for a split second, it was just... collateral damage. Just like pushin' her away the way he did tonight, despite all the things she said to him. He doesn't have the luxury to think about her. Especially not now, not when business is on shutdown, now when he's supposed to keep a low profile cause the vultures are flying a lil bit too close to the ground, looking for a carrion to shred.

He catches his breath, exhausted. Tonight's session is particularly rough on him, but that's completely on her. She's the one who keeps runnin' after him. He thought he'd never hear 'bout her again after her birthday, that he'd be fine with the knowledge that she's safe, and away from him. Givin' her back her pearls is probably the most explicit move he's ever made. With anyone. Hasn't been an easy thing to do, though. Among the few items he's been keepin' from her, this objectively ugly piece of jewelry has to be the most loaded one. With history. Memories of a time when things were simpler, when he thought that she could...

Never mind.

His spine straightens a little as he comes back to his stance, gives a coupla experimental punches at the sack. But then he remembers Trisha telling him over dinner 'bout Elizabeth movin' in with her boyfriend and he suddenly hits harder.

Oh, he knows why she told him. Subtlety ain't exactly her strong side, a commonality she happens to share with Elizabeth. Anyway, Trisha's been givin' hints for months now. He knows she wanna move in with him. She's tryna make that happen by telling him about other people's life. As if he even gave a fuck 'bout _comparisons_. Especially with Elizabeth's life choices.

And when it comes to Elizabeth's boyfriend, he... well he ain't got nothing _against_ him. Honestly he seems like a nice, friendly guy. Probably even one of the most decent men he's ever seen in her orbit. But it's so obvious that this dude doesn't know a damn thing about Elizabeth it makes him want to laugh hard. Makes him wanna grab the collar of his organic cotton shirt and tell him all about how those pretty hands of her wash his fake cash.

About this one time she shot a man three times in the chest.

About how he fucked her and the sounds she made.

He can't help but wonder if she's actin' the same with him. If she makes _that_ noise. If she kisses him as if her life depended on the touch of their lips. This simple thought is enough to infuriate him and he hits the bag with renewed anger, increasing the pace, sweat drawing channels down his neck. He punches 'til the scar in his arm hurts, 'til he's out of breath and his half-lung starts to wheeze. And he shouldn't be mad, but he is, even if she's just told him that it's over, that she ain't dating that dude anymore and has called off her moving ambitions.

Why does he even care anyway?

It ain't like he wants to ride off in the sunset with her or some shit. And Trisha, she... Look, he really likes her, okay? And she _healed_ something inside of him, back in the days when he was only a ball of pain and hatred. Elizabeth's betrayal didn't only destroy his body. She broke summin' in his soul too, brought a new darkness to his features. Something bitter, and raw. Disillusioned.

And day after day Trisha's been there, smiling at him, gentle, caring. Soft. And of course he knows that she was only doing her fucking job back then, but there was something else. Summin' that made him want to try again. To get himself back in that game. To _date_ someone normal, for real. He hasn't felt this way about a woman since Rhea. Quiet. Soothed. But there's so much she doesn't know, and the way things completely derailed again with Elizabeth later, he...

He said it before. He ain't no cheater.

His arms slowly fall back on the sides of his body. All of a sudden he ain't angry anymore. Just fucking exhausted.

He ain't no cheater. 

Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from t.A.T.u.
> 
> Also, I just wanted to say that I started writing that fic before S3 premiered and I certainly didn't imagine that I wouldn't have finished it by the end of the season... But still, here we are, a few hours away from the finale, and I can't believe that you guys are still on board with this story!! (and that so little happened in season 3 that I'm not _so_ canon-divergent here, haha!!)
> 
> Anyway, all of this to tell you guys that I love you and that hopefully I'll be able to write more and update sooner now that season 3 won't punch me in the guts every week. In the meantime, enjoy the finale!! ❤️❤️
> 
> And oh! It's past midnight, which means that it's officially my birthday!!! So I guess I'm gifting this chapter to all of you because apparently I still haven't mastered the concept of birthday presents... 🎁🎁🎁


	10. All The Good Girls Go To Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 🎶 _My Lucifer is lonely..._ 🎶

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I was all like, "Yay, this is my angst-free post S2 fic"?
> 
> Uuuuh... well, I kinda derailed.
> 
> So TW for: quite graphic violence, PTSD, dissociative episode and general angst. ( ~~sorry not sorry~~ )
> 
> (Also, chapter title from Billie Eilish)

Custom florally bordered stationery. That was her new idea. A thrill of pride had rushed through Beth's veins when she'd seen Dorothy's smile as she was pitching it to her. Apparently, there _were_ things she was good at which she didn't risk a decade behind bars for. And saying that it was coming out as a surprise might be a little over the top, but yeah, the realization was definitely a ray of light piercing the shadows of the past few months. This whole job was, honestly.

But back to the floral point. She could start by drawing a first draft of what she had in mind, make sure Dorothy and she were on the same page. She was already visualizing superimpositions of patterns as she pulled over in her alley. She had only been working at the gift shop for a few weeks and this was her shot at climbing up the ladder. She didn't intend to miss it. As refreshing as it was to have a part-time job to busy her hands and mind, the wage was too low to be worth it. Dorothy had made it clear that she couldn't take the risk to hire someone with no working experience at a higher position. But she'd also implied that if she did a good job, well...

So. Nothing too bold, though. There were a lot of things she liked at the Paper Porcupine. But also kind of a vintage, old-fashioned vibe. A charming one for sure but the shop could use a bit of modernity too. She had a lot of ideas for it, suggestions which she thought wouldn't ruin the place's soul while bringing new customers in. But it wouldn't happen in a day, she could sense it. So baby steps it was. Glitter could wait. She should opt for something consensual for her first time, maybe stylized roses with just the right amount of foliage?

Beth climbed out of the car, leant over the backseat to pick up the bag of groceries she'd bought on the way home before she pressed the lock button on her car key. The front headlights acknowledged her request with a rewarding flash and she made her way towards the front door.

Maybe tulips would sell the deal better than the roses, though? What would Dorothy like best? She'd probably have to sketch both to compare. Maybe ask Lucy for her opinion too. After all, she would be in charge of drawing the definitive pattern.

Speaking of roses... She sucked in a sigh. Resting on the doorstep was a bunch of flowers. The fourth one this week. No, wait. Fifth, actually. She pursed her lips in a sad little grimace. He'd have to stop doing that. Because some day, in a moment of lonely desperation, she would give in and take him back. Which would be a _terrible_ idea. She'd broken things up for a _reason_.

The flowers were gorgeous, though. At least Scott was the conventional kind of ex-lover who sent actual flowers instead of... other dead, freshly-cut things. But this wasn't a trail of thoughts she wanted to follow. Anyway. Struggling with her bag of groceries she picked the bouquet from the ground before she pushed the door open.

And for the foliage part, a mix of olive tree leafs and liana would be perfect. All she'd have to do would be to determine the right amount of tangle. Enough to give it the romantic fancy of a British garden, but not too much. She didn't want it to look messy. And maybe—

She stopped dead when she entered the kitchen. They _couldn't_ be serious.

"Oh fuck me! Not that crap again!" she loudly protested.

The two massive and honestly quite scary gangbangers who were leaning against her kitchen island didn't even raise an eyebrow at her complaint, only peering at her with malevolent looks.

She didn't let this last fact unravel her, though. Points had been made, loud and clear, and God, she hated Rio for not even mastering the ability to follow his own ideas.

"Look, if it's an out, it's an out. Be consistent for _once_!" she muttered under her breath, casually dropping her groceries on the kitchen counter.

Honestly this whole thing was starting to grate on her nerves. She was past the point where such power demonstration had any conclusive effect on her. They didn't impress her. God, they were ridiculous with their guns, and muscles, and scary tattoos!

"So tell me, Stan and Ollie, what is it this time, huh?" she barked at them, unabashed.

And to be fair, one of them was indeed taller and larger than the other, which completely validated the nicknames she'd given them, and —

"Shut up, bitch!"

The gangbanger who was the closest to her — Ollie —suddenly grabbed her arm and yanked her towards him, pulling his gun out of his waistband and pointing it under her chin. Her nostrils flared with exasperation and she rolled her eyes. Would this ever come to a stop? And this type of dramatic shows had run its course with her.

"Hey, watch your language!" she protested. "And put this gun down because I know that you won't use it."

Oh, Rio would definitely hear from her about that! And she would be _vocal_.

"I'm sorry, you'd rather get shot in the knee?" the gangbanger asked, moving his gun down her thigh.

"Right," she scoffed, "As if you were allowed to—"

She didn't see the blast coming. She just felt like her head was exploding and it took her several blinking seconds to understand what the sight of the second gangbanger — she couldn't decently call him Stan, could she? — rubbing his knuckles in front of her meant.

_He'd hit her_

And that had never... They couldn't... He wouldn't let... 

No. No, no, no, no. _No_.

These two didn't — couldn't — work for Rio. The latter might be full of surprises, but she was pretty sure that he would never allow _that_. Trying to ignore the wave of pain radiating from her cheekbone and the taste of blood in her mouth, she blinked back the tears prickling at the corner of what would most likely turn into a black eye within an hour.

"What do you want?" she venomously hissed.

"Now that's better," the man still holding her grunted in approval, almost affable.

"Call your boss," Stan-not-Stan said.

She couldn't repress her scoff, despite — or maybe because of — her state of shock.

"Dorothy?" she guffawed, incredulous.

Her piece of bravery got rewarded with a back and forth slap across her face and she felt her bottom lip explode against her teeth in a sharp outburst of pain. She tentatively ran the fingertips of her free hand over her mouth, wincing with the sting, and she blinked, incredulously staring at the blood coating the pad of her fingers. And... okay. She may have asked for this last one. Playing dumb was a purely suicidal move and she knew it.

But she was too angry to even care. This was so _unfair!_ Getting over that part of her life was hard enough, she didn't need additional scary shows as mocking reminders. These were supposed to have stopped forever the night Rio had sent her back to her world, acknowledged that she was no longer a part of his.

"You really want that bullet in your knee, huh?"

The question rudely brought her back to her current situation and oh God, please no. She knew the specific damages of those — Demon had once told her that knees were amongst the worst non-lethal body parts to be shot in. Although she had absolutely no idea of how this conversation had even happened. The hard metal of the barrel roughly pressed against the side of her kneecap and she tried to wriggle out of Ollie's firm hold. He didn't let her go — what a surprise! — and a wind of panic gradually rose in her chest.

"I don't work for him anymore. Whatever you're looking for, I don't have it," she precipitately said. Whimpered, actually, although she hated to admit it.

"Call your boss," Stan-Not-Stan repeated, threatening.

"He won't answer," she steadily stated, somehow hating Rio's ghosting manners more than ever.

As if she hadn't _tried_ to get in touch with him over the past few weeks. As if his hurtful and repeated dismissals had stopped her from thinking about him enough that she would try to call or text him whenever she'd had a little too much to drink. He'd never returned any of her calls, never replied to any of her texts. For what she knew, this number she'd saved as his might not even exist anymore. And it probably didn't. Rio changing his number quite often was a reasonable assumption.

"Bullshit!"

She wasn't sure of which one had spoken but Ollie hardened his grip on her arm, pressed the gun painfully against her knee and she couldn't repress a choked hiccup. She slowly raised her free hand in a non-threatening motion before she fished her phone at the back pocket of her jeans. She didn't even need to look at the screen to be able to navigate through her contacts list, and open the one she'd lamely saved as Rio. She could have thought of a better cover. Just saying.

She handed the phone to Stan-Not-Stan with a daring look.

"Go ahead. Call him," she defied him. "But he'll ignore you. I'm sorry but if you want to get to him you chose the wrong target. He doesn't give a fuck about me."

Perhaps a tiny veil of bitterness shadowed her last inflection. But it was true.

"You better hope he does," the gangbanger eructed back with an explicit eyebrow wave.

He picked the phone and quickly typed something before pocketing it.

"Kay let's go," he nodded at his buddy.

Ollie roughly dragged her towards the backyard door, ruining her hopes that maybe they would let her go now that they'd gotten what they were looking for, and she sighed. This would be a long — and maybe her last — night.

They shoved her in a car, Ollie still holding her and sitting at the backseat with her while Stan-Not-Stan drove. She made herself insufferable the whole ride long, as an angry retaliation. She literally talked _all the time_ , questioned everything either of the guys would say, and asked for countless breaks. Which she didn't get, obviously, but what mattered was the intent behind. It probably wasn't as suicidal as it sounded. They hadn't just taken her phone and killed her. Which meant that they somehow still needed her, although she didn't know for how long. And she always backed off every time she could tell that she was inches away from crossing the line that would send a bullet inside her knee. Or worse, her head. It got her a few slaps across the face, though, but she barely even cared. These people's inconsistency was _infuriating_ , in addition to be incredibly rude.

The familiar warehouse was empty when they arrived and she couldn't repress a moralizing, "I told you so," between her teeth.

It only earned her a rough encounter between the back of her head and the gun barrel as Ollie pushed her out of the car. She rolled her eyes, exasperated. As if they could kill her _now!_ They'd brought her there for a reason, how could they believe that she didn't know how this whole thing worked?

She let them drag her inside without opposing much resistance, tired of playing this game against the gun pointed at her head. Maybe a couple of minutes later, Stan-Not-Stan raised an uncertain eyebrow at Ollie who shrugged.

Beth cleared her throat. Whoever sent these guys for her, they clearly hadn't picked the smartest boys in the room.

"I told you. He's not coming," she said. Lectured them, almost.

"Well, he better do," Stan-Not-Stan eructed.

The gun barrel bit harder in the thin skin of her neck, and her furious, "Or what?" died on her lips. Granted. They were not smart. But they weren't nice either. Rio should better show up indeed.

There was a beat. A few, even.

Her anxiety grew with the immobile silence of the three of them. There was something comical in the way they were all waiting, a twisted version of a surprise birthday party, not even sure that the birthday boy would dignify them with his presence. If Rio didn't come... well she'd probably die, all things considered. But also. It would be _disappointing_. On the other hand, if Rio did come, then she... she wasn't sure of how seeing him again would make her feel. Relieved, probably. At least at first. But then...

This was pointless anyway because chances were high for him not to come. Which meant that she should start working on a way to get away from this by herself. Time to think rationally. What would _he_ do?

Her internal monologue got interrupted by Demon and Rio entering the warehouse in a fashion quite below their average level of theatrics. To be fair they both looked pretty defensive, even with — or maybe because of — their guns already out. But sill, Beth's heart jumped in her chest. Which was annoying.

She'd... well she'd eventually accepted that Rio had walked away from her, despite all the extremely mixed signals he'd kept sending her over time, despite all her attempts at getting in touch with him. She'd resigned herself to the idea that she would never see him again, and what she would have barely described as feelings back then — the embryos of them, really... well, saying that they had considerably cooled down in the meantime would have been a dramatic euphemism.

But... but he was still his stupidly handsome self. And he'd come for her. Which she had to admit was a little heartwarming. Although of course it was the _least_ he could do. Nothing heroic here. But the thrill was there, regardless of basic reasoning or logic.

Their eyes met across the room, and... well, she wasn't expecting any kind of Romeo-and-Juliet-esque butterflies to sparkle through her loins at the sight. Which, good, because he looked annoyed and fed up already with this gangbanger drama. Probably with her too. Although something different very briefly danced in his gaze as he took her in. She saw the moment when he noticed the evidences that she'd been hit, his eyes lingering on her face. A new, angry vibe tensed his whole body as he swallowed, his Adam apple bobbing up and down and giving away his agitation.

"Look who's here," Stan-Not-Stan sneered, completely ignorant of Beth and Rio's silent exchange of stares.

"Gotta say, your girl's a pain in the ass," Ollie added.

He punctuated his unkind statement with a tightened grip of his large arm around Beth's ribcage and she softly hissed under the sudden pressure, the air abruptly leaving her lungs.

"Yeah, she ain't my girl," Rio coldly replied with a cocky shoulder roll.

He sounded almost... Amiable. Charming. The fake, psychotic kind which she knew never boded anything good for the person at the receiving end of his spell.

But he met her gaze for a split second and his eyes were gleaming with... what? Something looking like _parental pride_. Honestly, this was the look she would expect him to give his son when he'd bring home good grades from school. And Rio being proud of her zealous dedication to the title of most annoying hostage in history... Yeah, it was rather enticing.

The four men in the room engaged in some sort of intimidating dance, exchanging provocations of all sorts that she barely listened to. It was enough for her to know that her two captors unsurprisingly worked for Ian, using her as a leverage to force Rio into making a reckless move. And to be honest she was getting sick of being everyone's pawn on the chessboard of a bigger agenda. And also... well, these testosterone-fueled power demonstrations were starting to get ridiculous. She had better things to do than being there, to begin with. She had tulips to draw, for fuck's sake!

More concerning was how she would get out of this tricky situation in one piece. Because let's face it. She was a human shield with no gun. Her chances are making it alive were hanging pretty low from where she stood. And trusting Rio was the most unstable board in her scaffold of uncertainties at this point. His proud looks meant nothing. Nor the fact that he'd showed up. It wasn't enough to erase the clarity with which he'd pushed her away too many times. She was alone in this. 

Demon was insistently looking at her, though, and Rio would cast her a knowing glance too once in a while. But, see, the problem with non-verbal communication was that... it was non-verbal. And while she had absolutely no idea of what Rio and Demon expected from her, she was fully aware that Ollie's attention had drifted to the ongoing rooster fight instead of ensuring that his grip on her was properly coercive.

She made her decision in a split second and in the maelstrom of events that followed, she would never be exactly sure of what happened first. One of her hands reached for the gun still pressed against her temple and firmly deflected its aim, while the other darted in her back, aiming right at the goon's crotch, her fingers blindly sinking deep into his balls through the fabric of his jeans and ferociously twisting and crushing until the man squirmed and let go of her with a groan.

She immediately took that opportunity to reverse the dynamic and make a shield of him. She actually had to press on her toes to circle his throat with her arm, her face so close to his back that she could smell his cologne and the leather of his jacket. She'd stopped thinking and it felt like her body was instinctively taking decisions. Her hand didn't even shake when she pressed the gun against his head.

Not that she had any intention of using it though, she just needed a way out. Except that _other_ guns went off in that exact moment. Maybe her move had been the kick-off for this insane race, maybe she'd just acted out of a lucky timing. Only one sure thing, she'd been barely holding and threatening Ollie for a few seconds when she felt his body jolt against hers. He went limp in her arms and she heard a woman's scream. Hers, she realized, in a growing daze. Her anger instantly dissolved, submerged in the wave of pure terror. She would have been the receiving end of this bullet, hadn't she stepped behind Ollie an instant earlier.

His body started to convulse against her, blood erupting from his chest and soaking her sleeve, and she gently brought him to the ground. Let him drag her down might have been a better description though. He was too heavy for her to keep holding him, and she almost crumbled under his weight. Shaking and out of breath she straightened a little. The sight made her dizzy, opening a gate of buried memories she'd always refused to confront. All of a sudden the lights went dimmer and her ears rang with noises and gurgles from another time. Another night. She fell on her knees next to the wounded man, comforting whispers escaping her lips that she wasn't sure of who they were said for.

"Hey, buddy," she muttered in her sweetest voice, "You're going to be okay, the ambulance will be here soon—"

Her ramble got interrupted when two strong hands grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to stand up and step back.

"Get the fuck outta here, Elizabeth!"

She vaguely registered the situation, her eyes catching the sight of Stan-Not-Stan moaning in pain on the floor a few feet away, Demon pointing his gun at him, and she yanked herself out of Rio's grip.

"We need to call an ambulance! He's going to die!" she protested, panic raising in her voice as she refused to abandon Ollie alone to his fate.

Because... Because she just couldn't leave him to die on the floor, could she?

"I don't give a shit. Get out!"

She didn't move, her body shaking with fear and exhaustion, her mind already in the middle of a panic attack, her vision clouded with images of convulsing, bleeding bodies. Someone _needed_ help!

"But I don't—" she managed to say before Rio grabbed her shoulders again.

"For fuck's sake, Elizabeth!" he shouted.

He dragged her outside and she fought him back all the way out, somehow panicking even more with every step he forced her to take.

He shoved her against the outside wall of the warehouse, pressed his body against hers to block her resistance, but she was too far gone to think straight anymore. She struggled against him in a desperate urgency until she heard the sharp snapping of two gunshots inside. She jumped with a scream at the sound before she went limp in Rio's arms, energy flowing from her as if she'd been shot herself, her chest throbbing with powerful sobs that didn't reach her throat.

She couldn't even save him.

Rio held her a little longer, maybe just a bit too long considering that she was blatantly not fighting him back anymore, before he seemed to pull himself together. He took a step back, his hands still firmly pressing her shoulder against the cold metallic wall and his eyes checked her body up and down. She rolled her eyes. People had died tonight. There was surely a better time for _that_.

"What?" she angrily snapped, hating the desperation in her voice and the tears she felt cooling on her cheeks.

He seemed surprised by her upsurge of aggressiveness, something looking like concern in his eyes as he asked, "You okay?"

And. Right. She was covered in blood, and even if it wasn't hers, the possibility that she'd been hurt too was a fair assumption.

She nodded, "Yes."

He chewed on his bottom lip for a second, the betrayed anger in her eyes certainly not lost for him, judging from the expression on his face.

"Good. Get in the car. I'll give you a ride home."

It wasn't an offer.

When he finally climbed in the car with her, he not so gently dropped something on her lap that she identified as her phone. Her phone that either him or Demon had had to fish on one still tepid corpse. She bit her tongue, stubbornly refusing to look at him as he started the engine.

People had died.

Not the most advisable ones, for sure, but still. She hadn't signed for this. And maybe she felt a little bit responsible too. After all she'd brought them to him. Or, well. They had brought her to him. But, tomato, tomahto...

And maybe she was upset for a completely different reason.

The air around them was thick with angry vibes. Electric. As if thunderbolts were about to sparkle between them over the central console. And neither of them would speak first.

At some point he tentatively stretched an arm towards her. His fingers gently squeezed her knee, probably in a comforting intention. Which was _rich_ coming from him. She angrily smacked his hand away, her body closing in upon herself like a scared seashell at low tide.

"Please don't even try," she gritted through her teeth. "Not when you finished a dying man off."

"Yeah, he'd have killed you without even a second thought," he replied, annoyed, without even tearing his gaze away from the road.

"He was in a harmless state! All he needed was an ambulance."

"Nah. This ain't how it works."

"I don't care of how things work!" she protested.

"See but —"

"I was out! You said it was over. I'm not supposed to, to find... gangbangers in my kitchen when I get home! That's your job. Your world!" she shouted, ignoring his interjection.

She found a soothing pleasure into forcing him to listen to her litany of frustration, in this space where he couldn't escape from her, for _once_. She didn't need to look at him to just _know_ about the muscle twitching in his jaw, the flare of his nostrils, the compulsive grip of his fingers around the wheel. Even a blind and deaf person could have told that he was furious.

"Alright, what do you want from me, Elizabeth?" he asked, an undercurrent of exhaustion flowing behind his anger.

But she didn't want anything from him. Not anymore.

She gave up with an exasperated sigh, "Just... just give me a ride home."

They settled in a suffocating silence for long minutes, until the familiar quiet of suburban streets enveloped them with repeated patterns of globe-shaped streetlamps and mowed lawns.

"Just for the record I usually call the ambulance."

A dull murmur in the night that she wasn't even sure she had not dreamed. An olive branch, maybe.

"Why not, then?" she whispered back.

Another silence. Although the tension was different this time, bearing the weight of half-spoken confessions.

"They hit you, Elizabeth."

Beth glanced at his profile for the first time, confused. And quite incredulous to be fair.

"Since when do you care?"

One could probably have sliced tomatoes with the sharpness in her voice. He chuckled, sarcastic. Almost mean. And bitter too.

"You still don't get it, do you?"

"Well, maybe if you actually _talked_ to me I would!" she exasperatedly replied.

"I was tryna protect you!"

And that last line, God, it was too much. He couldn't be cryptic as hell _and_ expect her to read his mind, she fulminated. He had no right to hurtfully dismiss her one day to solemnly swear an oath of protection on the next one. How naive did he think she was?

"This is bullshit! You never cared about me, you just... fired me! And congrats on your _protection_ because it clearly worked, boss!"

Her voice almost broke as he parked on her curb and he didn't reply. Instead he just gave her a look that frightened her. Something tired. Giving up. On their argument. On _her_.

He stopped the engine and she deeply exhaled. For a moment they both remained silent, with the streetlamp as only source of light. She knew this was the moment when she was supposed to climb out and snuggle in the comforting shelter of her home. Rio's whole attitude irradiated with the lassitude of her, the impatience that she left.

But she... wasn't ready. She needed explanations. Or maybe she just didn't want to be alone yet. Craved company, even his, a little longer.

She cleared her throat, her demeanor tentative, "Do you... Do you wanna come in?"

His body tensed, jaw rocking, knuckles whitening around the wheel, and... Fair. She'd just spent the last few minutes yelling at him. Plus she couldn't say that they had the best track record regarding what happened when she let him inside her house past daytime. Which _clearly_ was an unfortunate incident that they both weren't eager to see happening again. Hell no, she was _millions_ of light-years away from implying anything scandalous!

"It's not—" she tried again, willing to make herself clear about her intentions and almost dying of embarrassment.

"Okay."

His resigned mumble stopped her mid-sentence and she had to look at him to make sure that he wasn't messing with her. He'd sounded so... _easy_ to convince. While he'd given her every insight that he didn't want to interact with her beyond absolute necessity. And, okay. To be fair, there was something in his exhausted shrug which screamed his confident belief that he'd eventually regret this.

And yet the worst part was that he seemed past the point where he even cared anymore.

She didn't even ask him if bourbon was okay. She just poured the drinks with annoyingly shaky hands. That was when she noticed that she was still covered in someone else's blood. 

An instant later she was compulsively scrubbing her hands, wrists, forearms under the faucet, wincing at the sight of her maculated sleeves and repressing her nausea until she forced herself to step away from the sink while she was still at a reasonable number of washings. Avoiding to question further the implications of the too obvious Shakespearian embodiment she was offering, she kept her eyes low, feeling the burning of Rio's gaze on her. The silence was deafening, heavy with expectations and questions remaining unasked.

She took a few steps forward, stopped in front of him. Dreamily handed him his drink like a sleepwalker, feeling somehow disconnected from her own body. He didn't move and she slowly, reluctantly, met his eyes, took in the expression on his face. He stared straight back at her with a silent question floating in his eyes, searching her face for an explanation. 

She cleared her throat, her cheek burning with embarrassment. And also... perhaps something else.

"I, um... I'm sorry I didn't call the ambulance," she realized in a low, hoarse murmur.

He responded with the most imperceptible nod and they both remained silent for a few seconds, still staring at each other before he swallowed. His hand reached for the glass she was still holding like a peace offering, his fingers brushing hers in the process and she repressed a shiver.

"What matters is that someone did," he whispered.

The fingers of his free hand twitched, as if repressing a sudden impulse to touch her and she deeply exhaled, realizing only then that she'd been holding her breath, waiting for him to say something. Anything.

She swallowed, lowered her gaze.

"Do you... do you ever think about it?" she feebly asked, quite unsure of what _it_ was.

That she'd shot him. That she'd left him. That they'd been trapped together in that cold circle of unspoken grief for almost two years. That she'd saved him. That they had taken that messy road of lust again, added more chaos on top of the pile of betrayals standing between them.

"All the time."

She sucked in a breath at his unexpected admission, her eyes incredulously searching for a certitude in the undecipherable dark seas of his gaze. He slowly moved a hand towards her face, unrestricted this time, and she closed her eyes when his fingertips touched her temple. But he didn't push her hair away like he used to back in simpler days. Instead he delicately brushed the swollen skin of her black eye, the pad of his fingers sliding down her sore cheekbone. 

"Does it hurt?"

Her eyes fluttered open.

"A little," she admitted.

His fingers brushed down her cheek and his eyes dropped on her mouth while he softly ran one finger over her split lip. Eventually he broke the contact, his eyes jumping back at hers.

"I'm sorry, Elizabeth."

And from the look on his face she knew he meant it, but she just...

"For what?" she asked.

"They weren't supposed to come after you," he dully muttered.

He looked at her a little longer before he stepped back, moving around the kitchen island and putting solid, wooden distance between them. She took a sip from her own drink and winced under the alcohol sting on her raw lip.

"What now?" she softly asked. "Are they going to come back?"

Rio averted his gaze, chewing on his bottom lip, the worry emanating from his posture woven with something else, more treacherous. Annoyance was probably lacking a few notches to describe it properly.

Eventually he joylessly chuckled, "You familiar with the concept of turf war, ma?"

She rolled her eyes.

"No! That's why I'm asking!" she angrily replied.

"Alright," he paused. "Yeah, probably."

"And?"

"Still want that job of yours back?" he asked, reluctantly meeting her eyes.

"Why?"

"What, you wanna go through that shit again? You wanna go home some day from your legit lil job and be murdered in your fuckin' own house?"

Her eyes slightly widened and she flattened her palms against the cool wooden surface of the kitchen island, craving firm steadiness as she was losing grasp on the pieces of her life.

"No, I mean, how is working for you going to protect me from _that_?"

He smirked, "Oh it won't. But at least you'd know what you fightin' for."

She shook her head, growingly angry. Maybe this was his way of asking her for help, but she wasn't... _disposable_.

"You don't need my help, you're the boss, remember? And I'm — was — just... a bottom-of-the-scale employee," she snapped, vehement.

"How 'bout a promotion, then?"

She hated the amused sarcasm in his voice and she briefly closed her eyes, fiercely ignoring the part of her that wouldn't say no to the prospect. She waited for a beat. Maybe two.

"I'd rather not," she softly breathed.

She heard him swallow, knowing without even looking that his jaw was rocking in frustration.

"Then he'll keep tryna use you to get to me. Cuz he knows that I'll come."

She furrowed her eyebrows, taking her time to absorb the words and let them blossom in their full meaning inside of her mind. And then she realized. He'd come. He'd come in response to a mundane text apparently sent from her. She'd checked it in the car. The message was just asking for a meet. No threats. No implications of any sort.

"How did you know?" she whispered, looking back at him, scrutinizing his face, trying to decipher a mystery she wasn't sure she was ready to solve.

"How I knew what?"

He frowned in confusion and she sighed.

"For weeks you ignored my calls, my messages... And they send _one_ text from my phone and you show up. Why?"

He chuckled, the corners of his lips curving into the shape of a smile.

"They used emojis," he cryptically said.

Beth's eyes bulged.

"Well, _I_ use emojis too!" she protested.

"Yeah... They used 'em right," he replied with a fond smile that made something uncoil inside her chest.

A soft and warm feeling coated her panicked shakiness and her heart beat faster. She breathed. Deeply. This wasn't enough to make her change her mind about his offer, but maybe she could just... leave him with a door ajar.

"I... I'll think about it," she promised.

He downed his drink and dropped it back on the counter with a little clink.

"I'll talk to you real soon then, Elizabeth," he mumbled, already making his way towards the front door.

She closed her eyes. One second. Two seconds.

"Wait!" she called. "What if... What if they come back? Am I in danger now?"

He hesitated. Eyed her with something conflicted in his expression. And, well. Maybe she didn't know how this world worked, but Rio had just killed two of Ian's men because of her. Chances were that some very angry people were looking for her right now.

"I'll take the couch," he eventually offered, and she exhaled in relief.

Not that the prospect of him staying for the night was exactly what she'd expected. To be truly honest she'd rather implied that he could send a boy to look after her but still, it was better than being murdered in her sleep. She nodded, sheepish.

"I'll go get you some linen."

She almost ran away to the laundry room without waiting for his answer and she fumbled in the piles of sheets for an exaggerated amount of time. _People had died_. The panic was still hitting her in waves and she didn't want to let him see... that. She wiped her cheeks, angrily. So this was how things were supposed to go from now on? Living in the fear, indefinitely? Constantly expecting someone to be waiting for her in her kitchen with a gun? This was so _unfair_. She had not asked for this. Not this time, at least.

But Rio was right. There was no out. At least not past some checkpoints she'd already crossed ages ago. She was in too deep now. The vision of the guy who'd practically died in her arms rose unannounced in her brain, the gurgling sounds he'd made filling her ears, black dots invading her sight, and she had to precipitately grip the edge of the washing machine and close her eyes not to faint.

Not now. She breathed deeply for long minutes, her head dizzy, gradually chasing the terror away until she reopened her eyes to the wet stains her unnoticed tears had left on the sheet she was holding. Fuck. She angrily dropped the linen in the laundry basket and quickly grabbed another set before she made her way back to the living room.

Rio was still where she'd left him, waiting. There was something tense in the line of his shoulders, but she could tell that whatever turmoil he was facing at the moment it wasn't aimed at her. There wasn't hostility emanating from him. But he didn't look relaxed either. Had she ever seen him relaxed anyway?

"Here," she exhaled, out of breath, handing him the pile of linen she'd gotten him.

Her instinct was screaming that she should set the couch for him, because that was what civilized people did, but she couldn't handle the... the _domesticity_ of it. It was too much. She'd rather just throw a blanket at him and let him deal with it while she'd lock herself in her bedroom and try to forget about all that had happened.

His fingers brushed hers when he wordlessly took the bedding set, in a way that she was practically sure was intentional. But to be honest, from an external point of view she probably looked like a crazy woman throwing sheets and blankets in his direction as if they were on fire.

She immediately turned around, decidedly moving towards her bedroom and avoiding his looks when she heard the dull sound of fabric landing on the couch. He grabbed her forearm with his now free hand, half-turning her back at him.

"Elizabeth, I—" he started, worry leaking out from the tone of his voice and the desolated expression in his eyes.

"Don't," she cut him in a hiss.

She didn't want to face his pity or whatever commiseration he was expressing for her right now. She yanked her arm out of his grip, her skin burning where his fingers had touched her. No matter how much she wanted it, needed it, she couldn't do this. There was no way for it to end well. Let him touch her and the next thing she knew they would be fucking on the couch or something of the kind. Something they would both regret and which would leave her with nothing but a hole shaped like hurt in her chest.

Even more likely was the possibility that he would reject her, which would be even worse.

She locked the bedroom door behind her, leant against it with an exhausted sigh which ended in sobs. She hated him for what had happened, for being the reason she'd been forcefully dragged back in the dangerous quicksand of crime while she'd accepted that it was over. Sort of. But that wasn't even what she hated him for the most.

She'd have given ten years of her life, or maybe five at least, to go back in the living room and ask for his arms, his chest, his shoulder. To cry in the shelter of his body until relief would wrap its drape of serenity over her. To close her eyes and fall asleep with her lips nested in the safe warmth of his neck. To wake up together in the middle of the night summoned by a mutual urgency to fuck.

But none of it could ever happen. And right now, she was still wearing the blood of someone else. Because, oh right, _people had died_.

She'd stopped crying when she stepped out of the shower, though. The running water had swept her tears away with the last smears of blood on her skin, but the panic was still there, huddled somewhere at the back of her mind and probably ready to jump in her dreams. She curled up in her bed, searching for her own warmth and trying to forget that only a few inches of wooden panel were separating her from Rio, from the quite supernatural heat of his body, from the comfort of his scent.

What a fool she'd been to think that she could move on from this. From him.

She almost gave in at some point, incapable of handling the suffocation of her loneliness any longer. She got up, slid her palms against the door, caressed the wood as if she could touch him through a distant channel this way. And there was this frankly disturbing part of her which wondered if he was doing the same on his side of the door. Sort of hoped that he did.

She shook her head. Stop acting stupid, Beth. She slipped back into bed, settled on her side and brought her knees up against her chest, curling up around the ball of pain in her stomach. Eventually she drifted off at some point, rocked by the horrid echoes of dying gurgles in her ears. And maybe, just maybe, she shed a few tears too on her way to sleep island.

If she dreamed of him, she didn't remember it when the first lights of dawn woke her up. A last fact which wasn't unusual. Years of motherhood had accustomed her to fragmented sleep schedules. But she could have used the break, just for this time. She tried to get back to sleep, seeing no urgency to get up so early in the morning but she already knew that it would be all in vain. She silently made her way to the kitchen in a vague attempt to not wake Rio up, but he raised his head at the sound as soon as she opened her door.

He looked tired to the bones, at least from what she could see in the grayish light bathing the room. The sheets looked still folded by his side, and God, had he even slept at all?

"You up early, ma," he stated, the endearment sounding purposefully domestic.

"It's just habit," she mumbled mechanically while she fumbled through the cupboards.

She started the coffee machine and gathered what remained of her civil manners to offer him a timid — and frankly depressing — smile. The oblivion of the night had brushed away a part of the shock but neither could she claim that this was her most gleeful morning ever.

"Can I make you anything?" she asked.

He got up from the couch with a groan, rubbed his jaw with his palm.

"Got any tea around?"

And the thing was, she did. But not in any... connoisseur way. Tea wasn't a drink that she, or Dean, or the kids had ever been particularly fond of. But a good hostess always has a bit of everything for her guests, so she did have this giant assortment box she used to put out for PTA meetings she hosted. It just... well, Rio didn't feel like the type of person who'd like red berries flavored generic black tea, or the other kind of fruity fantasies that the box sheltered. He probably drank obscure kinds of herbs, Lapsang Souchong, or any other name she only had a vague idea of the concept they covered but knew they were used by the people who knew a thing about tea, just like someone would say Merlot instead of red wine.

"I... I don't have much choice, though," she whispered, feeling her cheeks slightly burn while she plugged the electric kettle, hoping it still worked.

It wasn't as if she was using this thing on the regular. Again, only for guests, and... she hadn't had so many of them lately.

"S'okay."

With widened eyes, she watched him pick a bag of peach and jasmine herbal tea, wondering if he was being polite or if he genuinely liked the blend. Asking him about it didn't look like an appealing option though.

The coffee machine blew off some foreshadowing steam and she eagerly filled her mug. Plain, black coffee. Good Lord, she'd always had it this way but she felt like she needed it more than ever on this particular morning. The water started to boil and she handed Rio the kettle, let him be in charge of whatever sorcery tea-drinkers usually performed during the pouring moment. She'd heard that some people were very specific about the water temperature, one of many details she couldn't fathom, but Rio turning out to be one of them wouldn't have come as a surprise.

It was... somehow frustrating, the way she knew so little about him.

They drank in silence for a while. She could feel the weight of his gaze on her and she kept her eyes low, not ready to face the talk they needed to have. Her eyes were still swollen from her night cry and the lack of sleep, and he couldn't not see it.

As the sun rose, the atmosphere grew heavy, the tension accumulating in their shared silence until she couldn't take it anymore. Why didn't he say anything?

"I, um... I've been thinking about what you told me last night," she started hesitantly.

Sure. She'd _thought_ about it, that she couldn't deny. Cried over it. Slept on it. Probably dreamed of it. Those would have been more relevant ways to phrase it.

He raised one eyebrow, his eyes focused on her in a way that she used to love, telling her that she had all his attention. A feeling she'd never experienced before him. But it didn't matter anymore. Things were different now.

She cleared her throat.

"You were right. I can't get out," she started. And maybe she didn't even _want_ to get out, if she was being honest. "But I have to warn you. I'm not easy. And I'm not cheap," she added in a breath.

God she'd hated the way he'd implied that he could manage her like basic furniture, place her wherever his mood told him to.

He shrugged, unabashed, "Yeah? How much you worth?"

She almost choked on her coffee. She didn't expect him to comply so easily.

"You couldn't afford it," she retorted, half-joking, although half-challenging.

A new flame seemed to light up inside of him as he playfully replied, "Depends on what you askin' for, darlin'."

And she... well she _knew_ what she wanted. She just highly doubted he could — would — ever give it to her. And it wasn't a game.

_"Do you ever think about it?"_

_"All the time."_

She swallowed.

"I... I want you to tell me that you can move on from... what I did. It's been almost two years now, and I still can tell how much you blame me for it, and... it just doesn't make things worth it for me. I'd rather be out if... if you can't forgive me."

She didn't even know why she was saying this, why she was letting him see the dripping wounds she'd tried to hide from even herself. Maybe it was the way he'd looked at her while talking about emojis the night before. Maybe it was because someone else had died and confronted her to the reality of what she'd done. 

Maybe she was just too tired to keep pretending that she didn't care.

At the end of the day she'd _tried_ to build a life away. Just like he did. But as it turned out she couldn't. It just didn't work.

He looked at her with surprise, and maybe a bit of pain. His Adam's apple bobbed, the only tangible sign of his turmoil. And fine. Maybe she knew a few things about him after all. At least, this she knew how to decipher. It was all in the little things, the subtle rock in his jaw, the slight twitch of his fingers, the blatant precipitation with which his palm rubbed his stubble.

He downed his cup of tea, a move she read as purely artificial, a vague attempt to keep pretending that he wasn't affected by what she'd just said. He looked away, thoughtful, and she just waited, unwilling to disturb his decision.

"Alright. Can't guarantee it'll happen tomorrow," he eventually said, his tone almost mocking while he was intensely looking at her, his eyes practically drilling holes in her skull. "But I can promise you to try."

She shivered under his piercing look, the seriousness of his last sentence, but something expanded inside of her. Relief, for sure. Expectations, maybe. But just like that he straightened, stretched his shoulders, took a step back.

"I should go," he mumbled. "I'll send someone over in case they come back."

There was something almost _scared_ in his weird agitation. And definitely precipitated. But to be honest she couldn't blame him for it. The last time he'd displayed the slightest kind of vulnerability at her place they both knew how things had ended. And she... well, obviously she wouldn't have said no to _that_ , despite her best judgment. But this was a mistake she wouldn't make, for the sake of everyone.

Speaking of everyone. Maybe it was time to bury a certain hatchet.

"Could you tell Trisha I said hi?" she asked, out of the blue.

His face darkened, just like a bright summer sky suddenly gets shadowed by a passing cloud.

"I... I told her what happened," he said. Low.

Oh. Well. Sending her regards was probably a bad idea, then. But the simple thought that Trisha _knew_ about what had happened between them... well, maybe Beth would have appreciated to have a say in this. Although...

_And I owe you an apology, because I can see that it's definitely not you!_

All things considered it was a little satisfying too.

"Why?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I told you before, I ain't no cheater."

She rolled her eyes, "So that's it? You can kill people but you can't keep... _that_ for yourself?"

He shrugged, his face cold and unfathomable, "Whatchu want me to say?"

"What did _she_ say?" Beth counterattacked.

"She said she'd move past it and forgive me if I could swear it meant nothin'."

That was... well, to be fair, Beth didn't expect that kind of magnanimity from Trisha.

"Oh, good for yo—"

"I said I couldn't."

It came out in a dull, exhausted whisper. Something... vanquished. "It's over," he added as if it was still unclear.

A cold shower of dread immediately poured over her. This was... too much — for starters. But also. Why did he have to drop this bomb on her right now? If the two of them hooking-up had meant anything to him why had he been acting as if it didn't, rejecting and despising her all along?

And also.. there was something else. A feeling more personal. Intimate. Something telling her, in the depths of her instinct, that she couldn't trust him with this. He could only be bullshitting her, for some shady motive she didn't understand yet.

She swallowed, nervous.

"I'm... I'm not the kind of person somebody would leave a younger, prettier girl for," she started with a raspy voice. Fool her once, and everything. "Quite the opposite, actually," she bitterly added.

He... He laughed. More than that, he burst into laughter, something genuine and utterly confusing. God, she hated him.

"Wow, wow, relax, sweetheart! You think I broke things up for you?"

Right. She couldn't decide if this was a relief or a disappointment.

"Then... Why?"

He looked away, biting his lips and obviously uncomfortable. An effort at opening up that he was doing for her.

"Cuz my woman has to be number one in my life. _Número uno_. And... she just wasn't anymore."

Beth frowned at this curious way of ranking people, "Isn't Marcus your number one?"

The shadow of a smile curved the corners of his lips as he looked back at her.

"Nah, Marcus ain't got no number. He's off charts."

"Right," she nodded, softly. That at least made sense. "So... Who's your new number one?"

He chuckled.

"Ain't got any right now. Why, you interested?" he asked with a mocking smirk on his lips.

She felts herself blush under the innuendo. Good thing that the room was still half-dark from the early hour.

"No!" she vigorously protested. He averted his gaze and she scoffed, desperately trying to loosen the tension, "I'm just asking for a friend," she added, in case he'd missed the implication that she was joking.

He noncommittally shrugged and they both stayed silent for a few minutes, chewing on thoughts of their own. 

"Alright, I should go," he eventually mumbled, jumping off the stool he'd been half-sitting on.

"Wait," she suddenly asked with a playful smile, "Does every person in your life have a ranking number?"

And the truth was, she was just curious. Mostly. Wondering where Demon stood. Where Marcus' mom stood. And maybe, just maybe, where _she_ stood. 

"Oh I'm sorry, is that any of your business?" he snapped with a warning light in his eyes.

Somehow she'd overstepped some boundary and the truth moment was over. She backed off with a sigh, trying to ignore the hurt of his sudden rejection. He _always_ did that. Showed a tiny bit of honestly and vulnerability as a bait, lured her into feeling safe enough for letting her guard down, only to strike immediately after.

"Right," she coldly whispered.

Maybe this whole idea of getting back in the game with him was a mistake. Although they had done it before. Before this stupid closet incident, before her life had collided with his again. They were doing _great_ , back then. She'd just have to find this mood back.

Now the only thing she wanted was for him to leave so she could take a shower and start a new day. Stop thinking about last night, about their talk, about anything related to this world. Maybe she should schedule a spa day with Annie and Ruby. Suggest a girl's night. She hadn't seen them for the whole week, it would cheer her up. And if they couldn't tonight, maybe she could offer Dean to come at his place for dinner. The kids loved it when one of their parents popped by unannounced.

Without waiting for Rio's disappearance she walked to the couch, decidedly putting order in the pile of sheets she'd given him. Which was pointless since it was apparently intact but whatever. This was her way to dismiss him, send him back to his criminal world while displaying an exaggerated amount of middle-class domesticity. She wouldn't have been more blatant with a neon-sign saying _Go home, this is not your world_.

That last move didn't seem to piss him off, though. Because on his way out, he slightly deviated from his trajectory to walk past her. Very close. Too close. His scent hit her and she closed her eyes, stiffened her body, trying to ignore the urge to bury her face in his shirt. 

He leant over her, his nose brushing her hair, and his fingers ghosted the curve of her hip while he whispered, his lips tickling her ear, "Tell your friend she's startin' at twenty."

One second later he was gone, but she could still smell him, and she buried her face in the fresh linen, craving oblivion in the cheap scent of laundry detergent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's play a game, yeah?

**Author's Note:**

> Story title from Meat Loaf ft. Marion Raven (okay I know that technically theirs is not the first version of this song — nor is Celine's BTW — but it's the one that makes it the most for me)


End file.
